


A Christmas fairy tale in three parts or a case of little green men (author: Red Elen, translator: MrsSpooly1981)

by MrsSpooky1981



Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-12
Updated: 2016-04-18
Packaged: 2018-05-13 10:20:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 14
Words: 52,819
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5704129
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MrsSpooky1981/pseuds/MrsSpooky1981
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A semifairy tale, а semiparable, a seminonsense. A Romantic Christmas Investigation. How do we know how it really happened? What if little green men truly exist?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. CHRISTMAS IN ANNAPOLIS OR A FAIRY TALE FOR DANA

Classification: case-file, MSR, a Christmas fairy tale (pre-x-files in the first two chapters)  
Rating: R (by a long stretch of the imagination)  
Timeline: Christmas, 1973; Christmas, 1999 (7th season)  
Warning: a little bit of magic – after all, it’s Christmas and a fairy tale as well. A little bit of musing about love and no angst. Well, almost none of it. It seems even the canon hasn’t suffered.  
Disclaimer: for God’s sake, they aren’t mine and I don’t have a claim on them. (All heroes and the idea belong to Chris Charter personally and Fox Broadcast Television. Also great thanks to T. Pratchett for an inspiration)  
Author: Red Elen  
Translator: MrsSpooky1981  
Translator’s note: English isn’t my native language so I apologize to the readers for any possible mistakes. 

“Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”  
The White Queen  
Alice in Wonderland by L. Carroll

December 24th, 1973  
4:25 p.m.

“It’s nonsense,” Billy says with great confidence. “Just stupid girlish nonsense! Nothing of the kind truly exists!”

“Of course, it’s nonsense,” Charlie agrees with his elder brother. Billy is his idol so he always agrees with him no matter what.

“It’s not, it’s not!” offended Melissa reaches out and pulls an old tattered book out of her brother’s hands.

Dana keeps silent. Billy certainly is the eldest and knows more than any of them; after all, he is fourteen years old, but at the same time he is such a smarty-pants! And an awful pain in the neck too. He really thinks that he knows more than daddy himself, but this’s definitely not true.

“Billy, let’s go play snowballs,” suggests Charlie, pulling on the sleeve of Bill’s sweater. “Drop it. Let them sit here alone if they want.”

It has been snowing since early morning what happens quite rarely in Annapolis, so the brothers put on their gloves and leave. Dana and Melissa stay in. 

“You don’t believe me, too, do you?” Melissa is staring at her sister with reproach, and Dana feels embarrassed. 

“I don’t know,” she shrugs. “What if Billy is right? Nothing of the kind truly exists.”

Melissa pouts, turns her back on her sister, and looks out the window. Dana signs. She’d rather enjoy playing snowballs with her brothers because snow Christmas in Annapolis happens once in a blue moon, but she doesn’t want to hurt her sister’s feelings. However, mommy won’t allow Melissa, who has caught a cold, to go outside. So Dana stays at home out of solidarity with her.

Missy puts a pillow on the windowsill and sits on it. She wears the variegated scarf, belonged to their mother, her red hair is tousled, her nose is swollen and red so freckles are hidden from sight, and her eyes are full of tears. Dana is feeling really sorry for her elder sister.

“Well, maybe exists,” she adds hastily and then specifies, “but very rarely. And, Missy, nobody has ever seen them!”

“Why are you so sure about it?”

“Because daddy says so.”

“But if daddy hasn’t seen them, it doesn’t mean they don’t exist!” Missy is leafing through pages of the book and finally finds an illustration. “See?”

It’s dark because an overhead lamp is turned off, and the room is illuminated only by the light, coming through the window. The attic, the girls occupy, is poorly heated so it’s barely warm here, and window glasses are covered with snow patterns. Air smells like old things, dust, and unsolved mysteries. Warm air, scents of cinnamon, ginger, and mixture for cough rise from a kitchen below.

Dana screws up her eyes and stares at the picture on a yellowed page. A short, narrow, light elf with thin, semitransparent wings is drawn there.

“See?” Melissa repeats and sniffs.

“Missy, somebody just made it up,” Dana’s voice is full of doubt. “There aren’t such things in biology textbooks!”

“How do you know?” Melissa protests heatedly. “You haven’t begun to study it at school yet!”

“I looked through Bill’s textbooks,” Dana replies. “Elves don’t exist.”

“Then go away,” Melissa snaps, her cheeks is flushing with anger. “I’m going to read fortune and I don’t care whether you want to do it or not! I’ll do it alone!

In spite of her sister’s words, Dana keeps on sitting on an old sagging pouffe, resting her sharp elbows on the windowsill, and stubbornly refuses to leave.

“Don’t get angry, Missy. You know that fortune telling isn’t true. What can paper pictures tell about future?

“You're wrong if you don’t believe me.” Melissa frowns and loudly blows her nose. “Because I’m really able to read fortunes. I’ve already checked and got evidence that all predictions come true.”

Dana doesn’t want to argue with her sister. 

“Let’s try to read future or learn who we’ll marry!” Melissa exclaims and jumps down from the windowsill. “It’s Christmas Eve now, so time is just perfect!”

“Missy, now that’s really stupid.” Almost ten-years-old Dana finds talking about potential future husbands ridiculous. “All boys are fools. Maybe I’ll never get married. I’m going to be a captain in the navy!” The girl announces and proudly turns up her nose, covered with golden sunny freckles – the same as her sister’s.

“They don’t accept girls there,” Melissa replies revengefully and screws up her piercing green eyes. “And what about daddy?” 

“Daddy is daddy. And boys are still fools,” Dana says and enviously sighs when she sees through the window how her brothers happily punch each other and throw snowballs, made of fresh wet snow, at the wall, so Christmas holly garland above the door swings dangerously. “How are you planning to tell fortune? I don’t believe in card reading.” 

“We’ll use wax, not cards,” Melissa explains. “I have several pieces of it. It’s real magic wax.”

“There is no such thing like magic wax.” Dana loves her sister very much, but she can’t stand to agree with something she doesn’t believe in.

“You just chicken out!” Melissa teases her. “You’re chicken!”

“I am not!” Dana jumps as if she has been stung.

“Chicken,” repeats Melissa with satisfaction, knowing her sore spot perfectly well. “If you don’t want to tell fortune so you're chicken. You’re afraid!”

Again Dana wants to say that it’s not true, but clear voice from below interrupts her,

“Dana, Missy!” their mother calls from the kitchen. “Let’s make cookies. Missy, have you taken your medicine?”

The sisters walk down the stairs. Dana isn’t really fond of baking cookies and Missy doesn’t want to drink a nasty mixture, but it’s unacceptable to argue with mother in Scully’s family. 

It’s warm, light, and a little fussy in the kitchen. Melissa winces, but obediently swallows what her mother poured in a spoon. The girls are making Christmas cookies in stubborn silence, sulking at each other, but when they’re done, and mother puts a baking tray into the oven, Melissa asks again, “Are you coming?”

Dana silently nods, choosing lesser evil – she’d rather melt wax than endure even a slightest suspicion of cowardice. Because she, Dana, is not a chicken at all. She is even able to shoot a gun. Besides, she is as good at it as Billy.

They walk up the stairs to the attic. It’s dark outside now, and warm dusty darkness reigns in the room. The girls sit down on the floor by the window, and Melissa takes out a big bowl, a thick wax candle, and a small sauceboat, she has stolen from the kitchen, from an old cabinet. The flame is bright and even, and melting candle smells of warm wax. Melissa gets out several cubes of dark wax from the purple velvet bag, embroidered with colored glass beads, and put one of them in the sauceboat. Dana sighs heavily and leaves to get water. When she is back, Melissa holds the sauceboat above the candle with great concentration and murmurs something unintelligible, making some strange motions with her hand. The smells of warm metal and burning dust are thick in the air. Melissa murmurs something about guys and their intended ones and, in Dana’s opinion, talks nonsense. 

“Take it,” says Missy to her sister and holds out the hot sauceboat. “Pour it out.”

Dana hesitates for a moment, but Melissa’s hurried question, “Are you chicken again?” prompts her to empty the contents of the sauceboat in the bowl with water. 

For a long time the sisters are studying the result of their manipulations in the weak light of the candle. 

“What is it?” puzzled Dana asks. “Maybe it’s some sort of a letter? How do we suppose to understand it? It looks like a dog. What does a dog have to do with all that nonsense?”

“I don’t know,” Melissa replies uncertainly. “But it’s not a dog, it’s a fox. Have you noticed its tail? Oh, I see,” she laughs. “Your guy is going to be red-headed just like us! Probably, it’s Steve McGraw whose father owns a drugstore. He likes you!”

“It’s rubbish.” Dana is getting angry. She can’t stand that show-off Steve who immediately runs to complain to his father if she fights with him or something else. But at any moment he can whether trip her up or tug on her hair. “And Steve is a complete idiot. Never in my life I’ll marry him!”

“Let’s try again,” Melissa suggests and puts another piece of wax in the sauceboat. “Melt it yourself.” 

“And what is it?” The sisters twist the bowl, trying to understand what kind of figure they get this time.

“It’s even more unclear than before,” Dana snorts. “I don’t understand it at all.”

“It looks like Casper,” Melissa giggles. “You know that cartoon ghost. It’s definitely Steve; he is as pale as it and has a similar voice!”

“The same to you! Melt it yourself now.” With these words Dana pushes the sauceboat to her sister. “I’ll never get married. And Steve is a dork!”

Melissa melts wax, and the sisters bend their red-haired heads over the bowl with water. 

“I don’t understand.” Melissa turns the bowl around. “What is it?”

“It looks like the ace of spades,” Dana says. “Will your guy be a gambler?”

Suddenly Melissa pales; it shows even in the almost complete darkness.

“What’s the matter?” Dana asks .

“Nothing.” Melissa takes another wax cube. “I’ll try again.”

And she pours wax into the water.

This time it happens to be a cross. The sisters keep silent for a moment.

“Missy, I’ve told you it’s nonsense,” Dana says with confidence.

“Yeah, probably,” Melissa replies after slight hesitation, but her voice trembles. “It’s nonsense indeed.”

She quickly breaks her solidified wax figure.

“Girls, are you there?” their mother calls from below. “Dana! Melissa! Daddy is home!”

“It’s mom”. Melissa blows out the candle hurriedly. “Let’s go downstairs.”

She grabs her younger sister’s hand and pulls her behind herself. 

***

Before going to bed, Dana puts the flat wax figures in an envelope and hides it in her small black notebook. Just in case.

The Christmas feast is over, and tomorrow she and Melissa will run downstairs to get their stocking-stuffer. Of course, they will thank Santa Claus even if they know perfectly well that, in reality, gifts are from their parents. Melissa and Billy will argue themselves hoarse again. They almost fought with each other at the holiday dinner when Billy was insisting that elves didn’t exist. However, elder brothers are awfully mean people. Melissa was telling that at Christmas little green men came to houses together with Santa. These men are Santa’s aids; they sit in his bag with presents and help him to dispense it to all kids. She also said that they could fly so they arrived to us from another world. Bill laughed at her and repeated that it was girlish nonsense. Mom ordered them not to start a quarrel, and dad said that everybody decided for himself what to believe in.

“Dana, are you asleep?” Wrapped in the blanket and barefooted Melissa approaches and sits on her sister’s bed. 

“No. Missy, if you go on walking barefoot you will get worse and mom is gonna be mad at you,” points out Dana, but pulls her legs up to make place on the bed for Melissa. 

“Look, why don’t you believe?” Her sister turns a deaf ear to Dana’s words.

“Because nobody has ever seen elves, Missy,” she replies with very serious expression on her face as if she answers in class. “There is no proves that they truly exist.”

Melissa sighs.

“Don’t you even want to believe in it?” she asks wistfully. “Why are you so boring? You are always going by the book--”

“I’m not boring,” Dana protests, pushing Bill’s physics textbook under the pillow. She doesn’t understand all these science terms, but nevertheless it fascinates her. “If you show me an elf in the flesh, of course, I’ll believe you.”

The door of their room is slightly ajar, and narrow band of dim light from a night lamp in the hall slides on the floor. Obscure shadows jump around, indistinct parents’ voices and some strange rustle are heard from the living-room downstairs.

Suddenly Melissa cries out and quickly raises her legs up on the bed.

“What’s the matter?” puzzled Dana asks.

“Look!”

Something small pushes through the open door. A small, green, shining creature slides on the floor and they hear ringing metal rattle.

“Look, look, it’s an elf!” Melissa yelps.

Dana pushes the blanket aside, jumps to her feet and run to the door.

Loud burst of laughter from the hall reaches their ears when Bill and Charlie run along the corridor to their room, screaming something like, “Here is your elf!” Then Mom loudly orders all the kids to go to bed immediately.

Dana reaches out and picks up an old plush toy monkey from the floor. It wears two green socks and is wrapped in some kind of green cloth with foil stars, shining in the darkness. A small toy timer is tied to its back. The monkey has hurt expression on its face; it looks like the plush animal is deeply offended by one of the socks, the boys have put on its head.

“You are right,” Melissa sighs, taking off the socks. “Boys are fools indeed. And pain in the neck.”

Then the girls go to sleep.

Gradually, stillness descends on the house, and only the fresh wind rustles on the windows, covers the driveway with snow, swings the garlands above the front door, and bursts into kids’ dreams, bringing with itself a fairy tale that they don’t believe in--

***

A book on the floor opens wide on its own, and a picture on its page starts to stir. A little green man straightens out his silk coat. Weightless dust pours from his golden wings, and he makes several cautious steps, his feet in funny striped stockings are moving without even slightest sound.

He pours golden dust of dreams on kids’ red heads then flies up and makes his way toward the first floor. A pair, a balding, but physically fit man and a dark-haired small woman, was taking a nap on the sofa in the living-room. He embraces her shoulders. The elf spills magic dust on their faces because he can’t let them wake up.

Then he flies round the Christmas tree once, and after he flaps his wings, a few new bundles suddenly appear under it. There is a big clear crystal in one of them, and tomorrow Margaret will decide that one present has come from Elizabeth, cousin of her parent, and another one - from her cousin Christopher, and kids won’t think about it at all. There are so many bundles, so it is small wonder they won’t be able to remember who exactly has sent all of them.

The elf turns around and looks at sleeping people one last time.

They won’t be capable of seeing him unless they believe.


	2. CHRISTMAS IN CHILMARK OR A FAIRY TALE FOR FOX

December 24th, 1973  
09:38 p.m.  
“We are responsible for those we have tamed”  
The Fox “The little prince” by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

A tall, dark-haired boy is sitting in the fork of an old tree, grown in the garden. He is wrapping himself up in a jacket and hiding his hands in the armpits; his fingers and ears are red from cold. The kid hasn’t put on a cap, and nobody has reminded him to do so, but he doesn’t want to go home. From an outsider’s viewpoint, it looks like the house is empty and dark. There are no specific Christmas scents, usually saturated through almost all the house till spring and felt even in the most remote corners. There are no Christmas carols from a small music box; before mom always set it at Christmas. There is no light there, nobody is cooking festive dinner, and even the main symbol of the oncoming holiday – a Christmas tree - is absent this year. Before they always had it – a huge green beauty with transparent Christmas baubles, golden bells all over it, and the small white angel with fluffy wings on the top. The right wing was broken a couple of years ago, and Fox glued it himself.

Now all of these are gone. And probably forever.

Mom has locked herself in her room again, and Fox knows that she is crying there. He’d like to be with her, to comfort her, but mom won’t open the door; he is aware of it too.

Dad is out. He’ll come later tonight, go to the guest-room, where he sleeps nowadays, to look silently at the darkness outside. 

They hardly talk either with each other or with him.

They hardly talk now at all.

That time a year ago Fox and Samantha gnawed gingerbread and hung decorations on the Christmas-tree. Fox teased her then, telling her that Santa Claus didn’t exist because he was just a fictitious character. Then Samantha ran to mom and complained about her brother, so mom begged him to stop his teasing.

And now there is nobody to tease, and nobody who can run to complain about it.

Fox is shivering; barely visible haze of his breathing is rising in the air. They often climbed up this tree in summer because when it was covered with leaves, the fork wasn’t noticeable from the road so it was a perfect place for hiding. Samantha demanded to tell her fairy tales, but Fox hardly knew any of them; he often began to make up his own stories. Then Samantha got angry and told him that those fairy tales weren’t right and started telling ones herself. It happened rarely, but Fox remembered every single summer day. Now there is no foliage on the tree, so ground, the house, and depressing cloudy sky are seen perfectly well through the bare branches.

There will be no more fairy tales.

Because Samantha is gone.

She has disappeared.

No, she hasn’t disappeared. He remembers just too well how she’s been taken. He remembers that he couldn’t have moved either his arms, or his legs, remembers bright light, blinding him, remembers strange people who came to take his sister. He remembers all the details of her abduction with frightening clarity and hates himself because of inability to do something to prevent it, although he understands that probably he isn’t to blame. But nevertheless, it seems he is. Fox believes sincerely that his parents hate him for it too, and much time will pass before he realizes that he is mistaken. But now he constantly rewinds these painful memories in his mind like an old broken film.

At first he was waiting for Samantha’s return in an hour, but hours were passing and still she didn’t come back. Then he began to wait that she would return tomorrow. After that – in a week. And now he seems to understand that she won’t ever come home.

Fox refuses to believe in it, and makes himself to remember over and over; so hard that his efforts lead to nausea, ringing in the head, and pain in the temples. He makes himself to do it over and over as if it can return her. Eventually, he starts to see nightmares, and in every dream it’s more horrible than it was in reality and more frightening than in his memories. So Fox tries to sleep less; instead he whether secretly watches TV at night until he falls into a dull stupor or thoughtlessly reads books. It hardly helps, and at the moment he is already dead tired.

Twelve-year-old boy doesn’t understand that he is pushing himself into an abyss. Fox is rubbing cold ears with his hands. Fortunately, he won’t be able to fall asleep so high up from the ground because the tree’s fork is too uncomfortable and cold. There are no other houses nearby, but the boy knows pretty well that all normal people celebrate Christmas this evening. Although Fox isn’t in the mood for it, he seems that Samantha would be glad if at least one green branch would appear in their house. How can she find her way home if it’s dark and empty?

Fox gets down and is slowly walking to the house.

The boy isn’t hungry, but he knows that he should eat so he comes into the kitchen, takes some food out the fridge (it seems to be a sandwich), and washes it down with water. Complete darkness reigns in the house; it deafens him, puts pressure on his ears, crushes and tramples in him. There has never been so quiet in here. The boy seems that the house has become desolate.

He goes upstairs and enters his sister’s room.

Fox looks around and sees Samantha’s drawings on the table, her dresses in the wardrobe, her dolls on the drawers, and her books on the shelves. Fox tries hard not to touch anything to make sure all things will stay on its place when Samantha returns. He sits at her table. There are opened books and an unfinished drawing on it. Samantha drew an elf. She believed that those little green men truly existed. Nobody sees them, but they exist. Once she told Fox that she had allegedly spotted a real elf in the garden; he had hidden in green summer foliage and laughed. The drawn little man is a bit crooked, his wings are different sizes, and face resembles a clown’s mask. Fox is looking at picture for a long time.

He’d like to hold a celebration for his sister, but there is nowhere to get a Christmas tree; it’s necessary to ride for it, but his father has taken the car, and, besides, a twelve-year-old boy is not allowed to drive a vehicle. Fox takes a box with crayons, finds green one and begins to draw. He is not good at it, but a Christmas tree appears on the same paper sheet soon. It’s also pretty crooked, but he doesn’t mind. The boy is drawing a garland, decorations and trying to portray Samantha by the tree. Suddenly he hears light steps, approaching from the stairs.

He puts aside the drawing and peers into the hallway.

“Mom?”

His mother raises at him her hollow eyes with dark circles under them which haven’t left her face for a month and asks dryly,

“Fox? What are doing there?

“I-- Nothing.”

“Go to bed. It’s late.”

She turns her back upon him almost indifferently, and the kid feels a sudden urge to shout at her or to hit the wall with his fist and draw blood from his knuckles. He is ready to do anything just to make them understand that he is also alive.

That he also exists.

And he is in pain too.

But it seems that nobody cares about it. They are drowning in their own boundless ocean of pain. 

When his mother locks herself up in her bedroom again, Fox quickly passes each room in the house, turning light on. He does it everywhere: in the living-room, in his own room, in Samantha’s room, in the guest room, where his father’s unfinished book lies on the bed, carelessly covered with a gaudy bedspread, in the kitchen, in the library – everywhere. Fox drags a chair to a build-in shelf under the ceiling and takes a cardboard box with Christmas tree decorations. Then he hangs red-stripped socks and a fluffy garland over the fireplace.

A sudden sharp pop of closing front door stops him.

His father is looking at the son with cold eyes.

“Are you crazy?” asks William Mulder instead of greeting. “What celebration? Don’t you see what your mother is going through? What is this illumination for? Take it off immediately!”

“You--” Fox halts when a huge lump sticks in his throat, but then goes on, “You act as if she is dead! You can’t-- Don’t you dare to think so! She isn’t dead, she is alive. And she will return! And I’m going to save this place so she still might return here! I don’t want her to return to the empty house! I won’t take it off, I won’t!”

William Mulder raises his hand to hit his son, and Fox screws up his eyes but doesn’t step back and doesn’t lose hold of the box. 

But the blow never comes. Mulder senior sighs almost inaudibly, puts a hand on the sharp boy’s shoulder, and then leaves. Fox opens his eyes, sees his father’s stooped back, and understands with painful clarity that nothing is ever going to be as before.

Hardly holding back scream which threaten to burst from his throat, Fox bites his low lip, drawing blood, and keeps taking out fireplace decorations.

Christmas has to be despite everything. Exactly for her, for Samantha. Wherever she is. And for him, for Fox, too. He can’t bear the thought of her being dead so he is going to live as if she is still alive. She is really alive he is sure of it. 

Fox sinks into a sofa, and again replays the events of that night in his memory. He constantly seems that he misses something; maybe he could have spotted something somewhere, but he hadn’t spotted it and it bothers him now and makes to remember over and over. His head becomes heavy, nausea rises to his throat, and an obscure round dance of images whirls before his eyes. Fox drops his head on pillows and falls into some kind of strange numbness, which is semi-dream, semi-hallucination. Not surprisingly, because he hasn’t slept for almost two days, and it’s been just short naps at best.

He doesn’t understand that if he won’t stop it he will go insane.

***

A little green man takes wing from a sheet of paper. At first he shakes off remnants of a slate pencil from his small coat then is shaking pollen from his wings on a drawn Christmas tree and it seems as if it winces. Coniferous scent is spreading in the room.

The elf is flying round the house. This house is ill: the light is turned on everywhere, but nevertheless, it’s dark, cold, and empty here. It can’t be healed or eliminated, and the elf realizes that this place is doomed. It’s too cold here; there is too much misunderstanding and resentment. But something can be done. The small creature pours his golden pollen on the adults’ heads to ease their pain – even just a little bit – instead giving them a drop of hope.

But they don’t have any reason for hope.

A dark-haired teenager is lying on a sofa, squirming, with his long legs tucked up and his head thrown back. He is cold in his old sweater, which obviously is too small for him so his slim boyish wrists stick out of the sleeves. But it isn’t the only reason why he is felling cold. The boy is pale, he suffers from insomnia, and now he is in the grip of nightmares again in those he whether can’t find an exit from a burning house or reach his sister or falls down into a black, bottomless abyss.

The elf pours golden pollen on his head, and troubled dreams, that torture the boy, fade, turning into an obscure shadow, an unclear memory. They’ll never leave him alone completely, but they won’t be able to drive him crazy. Perhaps someday he will want to remember again. Maybe.

But not now.

The elf flies to the fireplace, and immediately one of the gaudy stripped stockings grows heavy. In the morning Fox is going to find a book there. A ship is drawn on its cover; a one-legged captain is standing on the deck of the ship and is looking at the sea. A chief mate is next to him. They are always together: the captain and his chief mate. And they look together in the same direction. 

But it will be tomorrow.

The elf glances back at the boy for the last time.

He doesn’t need to see to believe.


	3. CHRISTMAS IN ALBANY OR A FAIRY TALE FOR THE FEDERAL AGENTS

Twenty six years later

You’ll wrap into a dream  
And be cloaked with it.  
All wishes and mumbles  
Come true in its stream  
When we’re not asleep.  
«Sleep, my beloved»  
E.Yevtushenko, a Russian poet

****

That wasn’t him again. Again. I was wrong again. It’s impossible. It happened again. But I thought that I would make it. THEY told me that time I would succeed and that one would be him. And then they would reward me.

I hate them.

I hate all of them so much--

****

FBI Headquarters  
Washington, DC  
December 22nd, 1999 

“That was the last straw!” Special Agent Fox Mulder slapped a file on the elevator wall with annoyance. “As though it’s not enough that Christmas Eve is soon and Friday is just around the corner!”

They were descending alone; there was nobody in the elevator car with them.

“Mulder, since when have you got upset by the prospect of working at the weekend?” Special Agent Dana Scully reached for the folder. “And, besides, the Friday is the day after tomorrow. Have Skinner enlightened you on what we’ve got this time already?” 

Mulder wanted to answer that the prospect of working at Christmas holidays had ceased to entice for him since last year but said nothing. She could get it wrong.

“You’re going to laugh--”

“Why do you think so?” Scully asked and opened a cardboard cover. “Santa Claus’s murder?”

“Well, not Santa Claus, of course, but an actor who dressed up as Santa Claus. More than one, apparently. The police wouldn’t contact the Bureau on Christmas Eve because of only one victim. So now we are wanted at the last crime scene. Skinner gave us literally a couple of hours to examine it, gather all possible information, and then they would be waiting for us to call a meeting.” 

The elevator doors opened quietly, and the agents headed for their basement office to pick up the coats.

“Poor kids,” Scully sighed, flipping through the crime scene photos. “That’s not so funny when somebody kills The Fairy Tale before your eyes--”

“You’d rather take pity on us. Don’t forget that if the case takes longer than expected, you won’t get to your mom and brother on time for celebration.” 

Scully said nothing. After all, she couldn’t confess to him that if the prospect of not spending Christmas with her family had had rather different reasons than catching another serial killer, she probably wouldn’t have minded. But he wouldn’t understand all the same.

****

During the ride toward the mall Mulder were bringing his partner up to date in their new case.

“The murders began almost a week ago. The first three took place in three different towns of New York State. All of them are not farther than 30-40 miles from Albany or New York City. The first one occurred on the December, 17th. Cleaning staff of the local mall came in the morning and found the body in a sleigh, covered with a reindeer hide and a toy sack. Santa had been seen a few minutes after 12 p.m., before closing time, and, of course, he had been still alive then. But none of the workers remembered if he had left. Moreover, they even couldn’t identify him because most of them had seen him only in his make up and Santa’s outfit. So, Michael Gordon, fifty-eight-years-old, was killed by a stab of a sharp, narrow object, presumably a knife, in the heart. Preliminarily, he had been knocked out by a blow at his head from behind. Mister Gordon didn’t have a permanent job, and this year he played a role of Santa Claus for the first and obviously for the last time. The toy sack and Santa Claus’s costume belong to the mall. The local police presumed that he had been killed for easy profit, but he hadn’t had any valuable things or a big sum of money with him, and the goods hadn’t been taken. The time of death was established to be between 1 and 4 a.m. It’s hard to tell more precisely because the body was covered. Gordon didn’t have a family, his landlady didn’t tell anything distinct, and the search of his apartment turned out useless. The second murder occurred almost 24 hours later and had the same MO. That time a Eugene Dale, fifty-nine-years old, a loader of the local mall, who had been playing a part of Santa Claus for past four years, was killed. He also didn’t have a family, and the police didn’t manage to get any useful information from his landlord. The same with the search. While the cops of the two towns were trying to find something else in common between the murders, the third murder was committed. It happened on the December, 19th, about 7 a.m. The victim’s name was Mortimer Swenson, Swede by birth, sixty-three-years old. He was found by his wife behind the counter of his baby goods store at 8 a.m. He was in Santa’s costume. The cash register was broken open, but because Swenson had methodically pulled money out of it every evening, the killer couldn’t have made good at his expense. If the cash register was broken open by him, of course. The wife couldn’t have cleared up anything. After that the police finally took alarm and demanded either assign a security guard to nearly every single Santa Claus or cancel all that clownery. Eventually, the local TV channel made an announcement because nobody wants to cancel a celebration. But while they were catching the Santa’s killer in the suburbs of Albany, another murder happened in Virginia at dawn on the December, 21st. It’s only 25 miles from DC.”

“He moved to another state,” Scully summarized, looking at the victims’ photos.

“Without a doubt. Probably, he watches TV too. The killer reaped the similar harvest there, but he made it for only two days. The body of Hugo Jackson, sixty-five-years-old, was found on the 21st. He was the owner of a candy store and used to serve behind the counter in Santa Claus’s costume at Christmas every year. His daughter, Martha Jackson, who also works there, found him at 10 a.m. Jackson was careless with his finances, and the five days receipts, he didn’t retrieve, had been sneaked out from the cash register. According to the medical examiner’s report, the murder took place between 7 and 9 a.m. Kevin MacMillan, fifty-six-years-old, an odd-job man of the local mall, who had advertised baby goods in Santa Claus’s costume, was found dead in Baltimore at dawn. Judging by ME report, the time of death was between midnight and 3 a.m. The MO is the same.”

“Two people during one night?” Scully asked with surprise. “Is he in hurry?”

“Perhaps. By the way, get out of the car. If we don’t hurry too by walking, we will have reached the crime scene exactly by New Year. There is a traffic jam ahead.” 

Mulder climbed out of the car and stood on the sidewalk; Scully did the same, and they rushed on, covering their faces from the sharp, chilly wind.

“So that happened on the 21st. Today is the 22nd. The information was sent to all neighboring towns and states; maybe he job-hoped somewhere else, and we just don’t know about it. Rodger Prescott was killed in the Arlington’s shopping center tonight. We are heading there now.” 

“What is known about the victims except all of them played the role of Santa Claus and were Caucasian men?” Scully asked, trying to pull the collar of her coat over her face. The harsh, prickly wind hit her in the face mercilessly, making Scully screw up her eyes and keep on walking nearly blindly.

“Their age and appearance are similar, but it’s perfectly understandable, considering their roles. This way,” added Mulder and waved his hand.

The mall was closed for customers so displeased people, gathering by the entrance, were discussing it heatedly. Mulder showed his badge to a police officer.

“Specials Agents Mulder and Scully, we are with the FBI.”

The cop let them in and pointed into the hall.

The partners moved there.

It was unusually quiet inside. The hall had been decorated for Christmas with garlands, tinsel, Christmas tree decorations, and artificial snow. The Nativity scene with the tiny figures, frozen in eternity, had been set in the niche, illuminated from beneath; the big plywood sleigh, covered with the synthetic reindeer hides, stood nearby in the darkest corner. The air was saturated with smells of ginger and cinnamon, but the atmosphere was far from festive. 

Because the dead body lied under the hides, and blood soaked in its artificial fur. 

One of the cops cast a cursory glance at their IDs, then nodded and said,

“Here it is. We haven’t taken the body away intentionally; we’ve been waiting for you. Our guys are done here. Needless to say that a maniac is the last thing we wanna deal with on Christmas Eve--”

A very pale and nervous looking assistant manager stood next to the cop. He shifted from one foot to the other and crumpled a thin white handkerchief in his hands. 

“T-tell me, please-- How long will it take to catch him?”

“I can’t say you that yet, sir,” Mulder replied. “Would you let me, please?--”

Several other cops stood by the sleigh.

“Detective Campbell,” one of them introduced himself. Supposedly, he was a senior officer here.

“Special Agents Mulder and Scully with the FBI. Detective, have you already got the information on the other murders?

“Yes, of course. But we haven’t found anything unusual; we have the same MO here – the victim was knocked out by some heavy object and then stabbed in the heart. The murder weapon is absent.”

“Any prints? Fingerprints maybe?”

“Nothing, sir. Data aren’t full yet, our forensic experts are still working on it, but I don’t think we’ll find anything specific. The body was found by the employees who came at 07:30 a.m. According to the medical examiner, the victim was killed at dawn, approximately between 4 and 6 a.m.”

Mulder squatted down to examine the body more thoroughly. Scully bent near him; she was so close that Mulder inhaled involuntary the barely tangible smell of her hair. It was a mistake because he had forbidden himself to do so a long time ago.

Even by an accident.

“Apparently, this guy didn’t use a pillow,” he pointed out. The dead elderly man was really stout; judging by his appearance, he weighted not less than 240 pounds and had about 6 feet in height, so Santa’s costume hardly buttoned on him. Definitely, he didn’t need to make a fake belly with a pillow. “Who was he?”

“Rodger-- Rodger Prescott,” the manager assistant replied hurriedly. “We hired him last week through an advertisement.” 

“I’m aware of his name. Did you know him before?” Mulder asked dryly.

“No, sir.”

“Do you have any personal information on him?”

“No, sir. Or rather I don’t remember. But I’ve written down his address-- and other stuff-- so if you need something--

“Did he have any relatives?”

“I don’t know, sir,” confused manager assistant answered. “I don’t think so, sir.”

“Have you found anything else?” Mulder asked the detective.

“I’m afraid no, nothing useful,” he answered.

Mulder and Scully exchanged glances and stepped aside.

“The serial killer is murdering people who disguise themselves as Santa Claus. The most reasonable course of action in this kind of situation is to stop these Christmas gatherings before it’s too late. I don’t understand why it hasn’t been done already!” Scully obviously was at a loss.

“I’d agree with you, Scully, if it wasn’t for one thing.” Mulder wasn’t taking his eyes off the cops who crawled around motionless body like ants. The mall workers crowded nearby, and a few other officers canvassed them. The holiday turned out well for these people, there is no doubt about it, the agent thought with bitter irony.

“What thing?”

“How does he pick them up? There is more than one Santa Claus even in the smallest town he visited. But he doesn’t kill them all. What is the principle of selection? I’m afraid that he won’t fall for our decoy if we try to use bait.”

“Mulder, it’s just an ordinary maniac. After all, you don’t run to VCU every time they face a similar case.”

“Is that what you think?”

She sighed.

“But Skinner considered it necessary to send us here. He asked to pay attention to the autopsy reports. Have you already examined the body? What can you tell? What about anything unusual?”

“Practically nothing. But if you’ve noticed, his beard is absent. The wig is here but the beard disappeared. And there are traces of spirit gum on his face. Apparently, the beard was torn off because some fresh scratches are visible on the skin of his chin and cheeks. In whole, I can confirm that officer’s words – the victim was knocked out with one blow to the head from behind, then stabbed in the heart with a sharp, long object of a small diameter and one-sided sharpening, presumably, a long, narrow knife.”

“I see,” Mulder nodded. “Anything else?”

“Else?” Scully seriously considered his question. “Something else seems unnatural to me, but I can’t put my finger on that yet.”

“Hold on.”

He returned to the sleigh.

“Detective, have you found anything? I mean notes or other unusual details?”

“No, sir.”

“What about the false beard?”

“My people are searching for it.”

Mulder signed.

“I’m afraid that the beard has already vanished in thin air,” he said, turning to his partner. “Only God knows why he needs it.”

“Serial killers are your strong point,” Scully replied, “so I heed to you, sir.”

At that moment one of the cops approached the agents. He held a small particoloured bag in his hands.

“We have found it in a trashcan behind the mall. Apparently, it contains letters from kids. The victim’s colleagues affirmed that he’d had the bag yesterday.” 

“File it, and let your people check all these letters up. Though, it’s unlikely that we will find something.” 

“Do you have any other questions?” the detective inquired; his voice sounded cheerless. 

“Who found the body?”

“The manager, Mister Freeman. The mall is opened from 8 a.m. to midnight; he comes at 7:30 a.m. Do you want to talk to him?”

“Sure,” nodded Mulder.

The manager looked completely crushed.

“Michael Freeman?” Mulder asked and flashed his ID. “We are Special Agents Mulder and Scully with the FBI.”

“I’ve already told police all I know,” answered Freeman automatically, closing his eyes wearily. “I came at 7:30 a.m., entered through the back door – it’s my daily routine. I didn’t go to the shop floor right away; I decided that the heating system had failed, so at first I walked downstairs into the basement-- After that, when I returned to the shop floor, I found the body and immediately called the police. That’s all. I didn’t notice anything particular or unusual. The police suppose that the killer had left through the back door; it’s possible because he could have just slammed the door there; the lock is automatic so-- I don’t have anything else to add.”

“What was wrong with the heating system?” Scully asked.

“It was very cold on the shop floor so I decided that it had turned off, but all equipment functioned faultlessly. I don’t know why it was so cold,” the manager replied impatiently. It was plenty obvious that he didn’t enjoy that conversation at all. “Probably, the killer had broken a window somewhere--”

“Can you tell us anything else?”

“No. Agent Mulder, I’ve already told the same story five times. I don’t know what else you want to hear from me.”

“OK. It will be enough for now.”

The manager stepped aside, leaned on the counter with his elbows, and buried his face in his hands. Mulder approached the detective again to ask him about possible broken windows.

“No, we haven’t found anything like that,” the cop replied. “But it has been really cold since the morning; it has gotten warm only recently. That’s why we are not sure about definite time of death. Anything else, Agent Mulder?”

“Not yet. Tell us if your people find the beard. Are you going to assist during the autopsy?” Mulder turned to Scully. He’s better to step farther from her or this almost intangible feeling will be haunting him the whole day; even when she isn’t nearby. He felt this barely perceptible fragrance through the smells of ginger and cinnamon, stuffy heat of the sales area, the stink of sweat and the cigarette smoke, emanating from the cops, and even the heavy sweetish smell of blood.

Actually, if it haunts him _only_ one day, it will be good news.

“Thank you, Mulder, for the great Christmas present,” Scully grinned. “The other bodies don’t have any special features. At least, I didn’t found it in the reports. Let’s see what the police ME has to say, and then I will examine the body myself.”

Mulder looked through the file quickly.

“According to it, the beard is also absent in the last three incidents,” Mulder thought it over for a moment. “And only in two of them it was found later in the trashcans not far from the crime scenes. Don’t you think we deal with a ritualistic murder?” Mulder inquired.

“No, I can’t remember the cults which practice Santa Claus’s murder.”

“But it doesn’t look like a work of a serial killer. He doesn’t leave traces practically and make sure that it’ll be hard to determine the exact time of death. Isn’t he too prudent for an obsessed person? Besides, the victims differ from each other, for example, by their social statuses. We have a broad variety from unemployed persons to shop’s owners, from odd-job men to permanent employees--”

“Mulder, but all of them are Santa Clauses. You know perfectly well it’s more than enough reason for a serial killer. We should be looking for what they had in common. Some particular feature which differed them from others. If we really deal with a maniac, and it’s not just an attempt to get rid of a definite person. Where is it easier to hide anything? Among similar things.”

“I don’t think it’s an ordinary murder, disguised as series of murders. It’s too complicated and too fast; we have six bodies per week.”

A police officer approached them.

“Agents, I think, you’ll want to take a look at it.”

He held out a transparent plastic evidence bag with a small piece of paper in it.

“There are only four words there, Agent Mulder.”

Mulder picked up the evidence bag carefully. The sheet of paper was small and covered with multicoloured arrows, which rounded the text. The letters were also colorful.

_“This is not him._ Where did you find it?”

“In the toy sack. It doesn’t look like a letter to Santa.”

“He didn’t leave such marks before,” Scully observed, looking through the file.

“The situation is changing. If we only can predict in which direction… Are he looking for somebody? That’s why he tears off their beards? Are he looking for some concrete person?”

Mulder returned the evidence bag to the cop.

“Order to run a handwriting analysis on that.”

The officer left.

“I don’t like this case, Scully. I can’t see a full picture-- Call me when you finish the body’s examination. And the autopsy, of course.”

Scully sighed; she knew how it usually ended. She spotted a medical examiner near the sleigh and headed for him.

The ME was scratching his chin with grim expression on his face.

“I don’t like it,” he said to no one in particular, involuntary repeating Mulder’s words.

“What exactly?” Scully inquired, approaching.

“It’s too clean. There is very small amount of blood here. The body is lying on the side, but it looks like blood almost didn’t leak from the wound-- Stab wound into the heart looks a little different.”

\-- Lost in thought Mulder was looking at the body of a stout man in a red costume who would never promise presents to anybody or wish Merry Christmas again.

_This is not him._

If this is not him then _who is_? Does it mean that the murders will go on?


	4. Chapter 4

****

Why, why? That wasn’t him again, I couldn’t have done it, I didn’t live up to-- I have to find him. But how can I find him if they don’t tell me where to look?! Which one is real? How should I choose him? I’m watching them, looking if they take a pillow, how they talk with kids-- I don’t know how else. I can’t get closer. But every time this is not him. Over and over again. They embrace him and say that this is not him. 

And after they embrace him, I put him into sleep.

Otherwise, he will rise and follow me. But I don’t want it.

I have to find him.

 

****

“Do you have anything to report on the case, Agent Mulder?” Assistant Director FBI Skinner straightened his glasses. A sunlight spot reflected from them and flippantly jumped on the wall. But people, who have gathered in the office, weren’t notable for flippancy.

A few FBI agents, including those from the New York and Baltimore field offices, were sitting at the long conference table.

“Sir, the facts are inconclusive at best. But one thing we know for sure is that the perpetrator kills people who disguise themselves as Santa Claus. Generally, he attacks at night, waiting for the moment when his potential victim is left alone. He takes money if he has the opportunity, but he is satisfied with little and doesn’t grab obvious values – Jackson had a quite expensive watch on his wrist and a signet ring on the finger, but the killer didn’t take them. Most likely, he uses money for momentary expenses. When the police tried to trap him in New York State, he moved to another one and murdered two people per night. Besides, we conveyed new information to NYPD and the police in other cities; during repeated searching of the crime scenes, the notes with words _This is not him_ were founded on two of them: in a tub with a Christmas tree in Baltimore and in a trashcan near a neighboring store in another city.” 

“Have you put an APB on him?”

“Yes, but it’s quite rough. We don’t have enough information.”

“What have the CCTV cameras revealed?”

“There are cameras only in four places out of six, and all of them have captured the same suspicious person. He is of a medium height and wears a shapeless coat with a hood which covers his head and completely hides his face from sight. Every time, when a murder took place at first half of a night, he came into the shops approximately an hour before closing time and didn’t leave the place after. Unfortunately, judging only by the silhouette, it’s impossible to determine whether we’re dealing with a man or a woman. There is a possibility that this person left through a back door. The experts are examining CCTV footage at the moment, so maybe we’ll get something more concrete soon. At dawn our killer committed murders in the small stores which don’t have such luxury as CCTV cameras. Probably, he’d been the first customer that they’d have filmed.”

“Where is Agent Scully? What about the body?”

Mulder didn’t get a chance to answer because the office door opened, and his partner rushed into the room, stopping in her tracks in the sunlight stream.

“I’m sorry, I’m late, sir,” Scully said hastily.

“Get a seat, Agent Scully.” Skinner rapped at the table with his pen as he looked at her with thoughtful expression on his face. “What do you have?”

Scully sat in the armchair next to her partner. Very close to him.

“Sir, the thorough examination of all available data has established that all victims were overweight, but tall. The killer had torn off the false beards from some of them. However, Mister Swenson had grown his own short beard, but nevertheless glued false one for more plausibility. Obviously, the killer chooses those who better fit a generally accepted Santa Claus’s image. The autopsy is performing today.”

“None of them put a pillow under a costume--” Mulder crossed his legs and scratched his forehead; it was seemed that he seriously thought over that piece of information. 

“So what? Is he looking for the man whose beard won’t tear off?” Agent Rodgers from New York field office hemmed skeptically.

“Why does he do it, Agent Mulder? I don’t see logic in his actions.” Skinner turned over the pages, looking at the victims’ photos.

“There is logic here, sir. Any serial killer and madman always act according to their own logic, we just aren’t able to catch it every time,” Mulder explained.

“We are aware of these basic things,” Skinner interrupted him, closing the folder. “What can you tell us about his motives?”

“Based on assumption that he kills people who bear a greatest resemblance to Santa Claus but every time disappointedly writes the phrase _This is not him_ , I would say that our killer looks for the real Santa.”

“What do you mean _the real_ Santa? Agent Mulder, are you mocking me?” Skinner threw his pen away with great irritation.

“No, sir. I mean what I said. He chooses them for a strong resemblance to Santa Claus, but every time they turn out false.”

“But he will never find the real one!”

“No, he won’t. But, probably, he just doesn’t understand this simple fact. Unfortunately for our killer, the real Santa doesn’t exist. So most likely he goes on killing until we stop him. I don’t know why he appears to be in such hurry, but we risk getting two bodies at every night.”

“Agent Mulder, in your profile you have determined his age very vaguely.”

“Moreover, sir, I suppose that he is immature. Probably, he is from 20 to 30 or 35 years old. He must be not of a strong, sturdy build; that’s why he knocks his victims at first. I don’t rule out the possibility that he has recently lost people who has been looking after him. Or he has run away from them and fallen out of a normal life like a nestling from a nest. It’s highly probable that he has a record in some mental institution. The form of his notes, the arrows, using of several coloures, the way of writing are typical for schizophrenics. The handwriting expertise confirmed my conclusion. Also I think that he has problem with a driver’s license.” 

“I suppose we should make a public announcement on TV again,” one of the VCU agents offered thoughtfully.

“Do you remember what happened the last time when officials did so?” Mulder objected. “He moved to another state. What can prevent him from moving to small towns and beginning his search there?”

“What do you suggest, Agent Mulder? It’s afternoon already. We don’t have much time till night. We can’t forbid Santa Clauses to wear their costumes; first of all, we don’t know how the killer is going to react to it. We may not have enough time to warn every stout actor personally. We also can’t demand to replace all stout actors by slim ones. And I assume that if he is going to kill another man tonight, he has already chosen him. Nevertheless, I think that we should make an announcement on television. The more so because gossip about Santa Claus murders have already spread.”

“And what will we gain from it? If we assign a security guard to every Santa, it will be useless.”

“Order the mall’s security guards to be nearby. Also we’ll recommend to the owners of the private stores not to wear Santa Claus costume today and tomorrow.” Assistant Director stood up, making it clear that the meeting is over. “Agent Dorris, make a press-release for the media. And as soon as possible. It’s also necessary to tighten control over the city’s gates and check out all suspicious cars. You are dismissed for now but stay in touch.”

“He is just an ordinary serial killer,” somebody said. “What is all this fuss about?”

***

Mulder and Scully got out of Skinner’s office. 

“I can’t get rid of one disturbing thought,” Mulder remarked when they headed for the elevator hastily. 

“What thought?”

“Why does he try to kill the real Santa Claus? What goal does he want to achieve?”

“Mulder, Santa Claus doesn’t exist. Our murderer can’t kill the real one just because there is no real Santa,” Scully smiled at her partner and entered the elevator. Several people followed them inside, so the partners ended up in the corner. The elevator car began to descend slowly, and as ill luck would have it, stopped on each floor during the ride.

Mulder sighed heavily, and Scully felt his breath on the top of her head. Finally, the elevator reached the lowest floor. 

There was far much quieter in the basement office than upstairs.

“But the killer believes that the real Santa exists,” Mulder added softly, closing the door behind him.

“Mulder, please don’t tell me that you believe in Santa Claus,” Scully snickered.

“Me? I believed once when I was a kid. What about you? Were you sure even in the childhood that nothing supernatural existed?”

“Well, your guess is almost correct. Probably, I’d believed until I turned six, but then… It was something like a non-aggression pact; we pretended as if we believed that we got the presents from some fairy tale character, and our parents pretended that they believed in our belief in Santa Claus. Though, it seemed that Melissa had really believed in him for a long time-- Probably, this isn’t so good after all because kids need to believe in miracles.”

Her lips twisted in bitter smile as happened every time when she remembered her sister.

“Samantha also believed. I told her that Santa Claus didn’t exist, and she was sulky with me.”

They fell silent. Scully turned away and began to gather the scattered crime scenes and victims’ photos automatically. Mulder stepped forward, and Scully felt as he put his hands on her shoulders cautiously and then again sensed his barely audible sigh on the top of her head. She froze, not daring to turn around. Scully felt as the partner touched her hair with his lips and heard in his silence something what made her breath caught.

It seemed that the ring of her cell phone could muffle a fire alarm.

Scully hurriedly grabbed the offending device, almost dropping it in the process. Mulder put his hand into his pants pockets and sank back in his chair, sincerely hoping that a caller is experiencing a strong attack of hiccup at the moment. 

“Yes. Hello, Billy--”

Oh, of course. Only Captain Bill Scully could call exactly when-- By and large, he might not call at all. Definitely Mulder wouldn’t be upset by that.

“No, Billy, I’m busy right now.” Not looking at her partner, Scully stepped aside. She seemed that she had still felt Mulder’s hands on her shoulders. “Yes, yes, of course, I’m at work. I don’t know. Because we have another case now. No, not about green men. It’s a murder case.”

Mulder hummed.

Letting out a huge but habitual sigh, Scully went on,

“If we close it in time, I’ll visit mom. But I’m not sure I can make it-- Bill, I have my job, you have yours, so let’s not argue about it.”

The office phone rang sharply.

Resigning himself to his fate, Mulder picked up the receiver. No doubt it was some sort of conspiracy that he had to deal with.

“Agent Mulder. Yes, sir.”

“The announcement for TV is ready and will be on air in a half hour,” Skinner said without greeting. “Do you have anything to add?”

“Have the experts been able to get more information from the CCTV footage?”

“They could determine that we’re dealing with a male, taller than medium height, probably, white, dark-haired, and lean.”

“Not much.”

“Yes. Go to the lab, the experts are still working on it. They asked you to drop by.”

Mulder put the receiver down and saw that Scully turned off her cell phone and put it into her jacket pocket.

“The Captain wishes to see Agent Scully at home for Christmas, doesn’t he?”

“Yes, he does,” Scully replied wearily. “And-- if I can, I’ll be there.”

“Yeah,” Mulder agreed thoughtfully. “If you can.”

****

They told me that I could do it. They told me that it was necessary. They need this world so they asked for my help. They promised me that the world would become mine too; I would be famous, and they would even write about me in newspapers. All of them would regret that they didn’t love me. I’m already on TV news. And they promised me new skates. He has never given me skates because he hasn’t had permission to do so. No, because he hasn’t wanted. They can’t find him themselves; they aren’t able to see him until he is alive. They see a lot, they tell me where I have to go to avoid being seen, but they can’t find him. And I can because I’m alive and I see. And they are not. They’ll be able to see him when he is neither dead nor alive. And when I find him, the real one, they will claim the world for themselves. They need to get rid of him. They have cold fingers.

I don’t need the world. I don’t want the world belongs to him. They tell that I shouldn’t love the world and I don’t.

I know that he has never loved me. They told me so.

And I’ll kill him.

And there will never be so hot anymore.

The eternal cold is coming. 

****

The expert team was still processing the CCTV footage when Mulder and Scully entered the lab.

“Good afternoon. We’ve been waiting for you,” Cynthia Middle, a tall blue-eyed female lab technician, greeted the partners. “You see, Agent Mulder, the problem is what we have the footage from the external cameras. But the internal ones barely caught the sight of that person.” The woman made a helpless gesture. “The cameras failed to cover a direct crime scene in each of four incidents. We suppose that he is your guy.”

“Have you found anything concrete?”

“Unfortunately, close to nothing. But, how it often happens, something strange revealed during the frame-by-frame search. Perhaps, it has something to do with your-- paranormal unit,” the expert smiled and rewound the tape a little backward. “Look, right here. That’s what I wanted to show you.”

Mulder moved slightly aside to let Scully see the screen too. She bent over near him, and her right shoulder touched his left shoulder. Middle drew near from his other side. The lab was stuffy and cramped place because of the numerous racks and boxes with tapes in them, so the heavy citrous aroma of Agent Middle’s perfume seemed almost unbearable for Mulder.

“Right here, Agent Mulder. See?”

He stared at the screen.

The expert replayed all four pieces in a row. Each of them was not longer than a couple of seconds, and only a few frames showed what the expert had meant: the obscure, almost transparent shadows, surrounding the stranger from all sides. It was almost impossible to make out what it was even after considerable processing of the sources.

“What is it?” Scully asked.

“This thing,” Mulder specified, pointing at the screen. 

“Only God knows,” Agent Middle replied. “After processing we were able to get only that.” She furiously began to type, and soon the next image appeared on the monitor. “See? They are identical on all tapes. If it were not for that circumstance, we would mistake these artefacts for defects of the footage. But it seems that there are less of them on the earlier tapes.”

“So it’s an X-file after all,” Mulder said with undisguised satisfaction.

“Agent Mulder, if you tell me, what it is when you find it out, we will be very grateful,” Agent Middle remarked, smiling at him sweetly. “We rarely get chance to encounter with something improbable.”

“Although Santa Claus’s job is dangerous nowadays, I’ll give you this Christmas present,” Mulder promised, returning her smile. “And I will ask for a copy of the tape as a present from you.”

“Only for you, Agent Mulder. You’ll get it in a few minutes. When we can count on the response?”

“As soon as we close the case,” Mulder replied.

Agent Middle quickly began to push keys on the keyboard. While she was making the copy, Mulder suddenly decided that silence had become too loud and turned around.

Scully was nowhere to be seen.


	5. Chapter 5

****

Sam Dowdy put the last garland over the front door and turned the new CCTV camera on. It didn’t matter that he owned just another small store at another gas station near I-95 because people still need road maps. And coffee. And sandwiches. And cigarettes. And fresh newspapers. And chocolate. And other stuff. Not to mention gasoline and a restroom. Dozens of customers dropped by his store every day. So why wouldn’t he try and create good mood for those people?

Mr. Dowdy strengthened up his red coat on the stomach. The buttons dangerously crackled; Bess had warned him that the costume might be too small for his growing belly. He was going to go on a diet after Christmas. Probably.

The beard was scratchy, and he wanted to get rid of it, but what kind of Santa would he be without the beard? It was hot in the costume, but Mr. Dowdy thought that he could put up with discomfort a couple of days an year. 

Today he hasn’t had many customers, but thanks to impending Christmas, the day’s receipts weren’t that bad. It was almost 5 p.m., and people would have appeared more often by night--

Mr. Dowdy clicked the remote and turned the TV above the counter on. Usually it served for background noise, so it was on almost constantly, but there had been some troubles with the antenna today; technician left only an hour ago. Those murders were all over the news again. Don’t they have anything else to discuss on Christmas Eve? With irritation he switched to another channel with an advertisement of Christmas bargain sales on. No great shakes, too, but still better than murders.

“Good afternoon,” he said when a young man in a dark coat with a hood and a rucksack on his back approached the counter. His coat was unfastened as if he was hot. The guy was rubbing hands in thin gloves with one another. These young people, who try so hard to be trendy nowadays, have lost their mind, thought Mister Dowdy. This one has already caught a cold, but still wears his coat open.

“Hot coffee?” Dowdy turned a coffee machine on almost automatically and shivered; suddenly it grew cold in the store. Perhaps, this guy hadn’t bothered to close the door.

“N-no, thanks. Or-- OK, yes.” The guy was staring at the store’s owner as if he was examining his face. He had strange, quiet voice which seemed to waft from far away.

“It’s not warm today, buddy,” Dowdy snickered in his thick synthetic beard. “Here, take your coffee. It’ll help you reach New York.” And he gave a cup of coffee to the young man.

“Are you real Santa Claus, sir?” The guy wasn’t turning his transparently blue eyes away from the salesman.

“Of course, buddy.” Dowdy was a merry man so if the guy wanted to joke why wouldn’t he play along with him? “And my reindeers are pasturing on the backyard. What about maps, cigarettes, sandwiches?”

“No, thanks-- But why do you live here, at the gas station?”

“Because it’s quiet here, buddy. And I can socialize with people-- Anything else?”

The guy began wandering around slowly and finally stopped near the counter with maps and newspapers. 

“Could you recommend me a map? I need the most detailed map,” he said, dropping his long sack to the floor. “Could you help me? They said I needed a map.”

“Just a moment.” Dowdy got out of the counter with difficulty; definitely a big belly impeded movements. Bess is right, of course. “I’d choose this one; it’s cheaper and contains all you may need--”

Sam Dowdy bent over to get the map. For a moment it seemed that the guy became almost transparent because he saw the outlines of the counter right through him.

Probably, blood pressure is rising, he thought.

When a beetle for meat hit him on the top of his head, his eyes widened in surprise.

\-- Coffee in the cup was slowly covering with thick, dirty-brown ice crust.

****

The guy with icy-blue eyes exited from the store, holding the synthetic beard in his hand. He barely held his tears back.

That one turned out a fake. He would kill the real one differently. They will tell him how exactly. But that… he was just an ordinary man. A fake. A fraud. They embraced him and said that he wasn’t real. And he got cold for that world. And Brian took his body’s warm; it was the only thing he was able to take from a fake one; the only thing that Brian needed. I don’t want coffee. I need something else. I should throw away the gloves because I’ve cut myself and smeared them with blood. And I don’t need the beard anymore. This’s not him again. Over and over-- Brian leaves the notes for those who are searching. Let them understand that it’s not Brian’s fault, he is not guilty. Brian leaves the beautiful notes; they even have the arrows and will explain everything. Brian always takes the crayons with him. What if he suddenly has to write a letter to someone? Once he already wrote Him this kind of letter. It was beautiful and multicolored, but He didn’t answer.

Why does He hide? He has never loved him. Aunt Jane told that Brian Eddie was a bad boy so what was why Santa Claus didn’t love him. Perhaps, Aunt Jane was right. And then Aunt Jane told that he didn’t exist. She was wrong. But Aunt Jane is gone now. And soon Santa will be gone, too.

It’s so hot here--

I wish it was cold. When snow falls, it must be cold.

They tell me that I need to go farther.

The guy got into the car and slammed the door shut.

A light-blue sedan drove up to the gas station. A blond woman in high-heeled shoes got out and started to fiddle with her car.

He needs to hurry-- needs to return. He needs more pills.

\--When the blond in high-heeled shoes, screaming, darted out from the store that she entered to buy coffee, but found a body instead, a dirty old grey-greenish Volkswagen had long ago disappeared from sight around the corner--

****

“Is he returning to New York?” Skinner asked, pacing the office nervously. Now, when the case displayed sighs of paranormal activity, it was handled by two divisions simultaneously although officially the investigation was being run by the VCU.

“Probably.” Mulder rose to his feet. “We know the exact time when the murder occurred. It happened between 4:35 and 4:50 p.m. when the killer left the store as we can see on the tape. The next customer, Miss Hatchson, entered the shop at 5:10. Probably, the killer drove from the gas station shortly before she found the body. But it took a while to call the police, then for them to arrive at the place, send out an APB to all patrol cars in the area and finally get the tape-- As a result, it’s 8:00 p.m. now. We know that he is heading back to New York and either we know that he killed another Santa, Samuel Dowdy, the gas station’s owner, 19 miles away from the NYC. Besides, he did it at the daytime. Now, we have his photo. The picture was made by CCTV camera at the gas station. It’s blurred, and a hood of the killer’s coat partially hides his face from sight, but we’re able to gain something from it. He broke a shop window and took only one pack of medicine to reduce fever. There were blood stains on broken glass. Besides, police found a beard and gloves in a trashcan several yards away from the crime scene. The gloves were covered in blood, one of them was ripped open; perhaps, it’s Dowdy’s blood but maybe not only his. We’ll get more concrete information any minute. On the floor was found a road map with a colourful and flowery inscription _This is not him_ on it. Police officers also report that it was very cold in the store, although the doors were closed and the heating system was on; so cold that coffee in a cup turned to ice. I’m afraid the killer has an hours-long head start on us. When all patrolmen got description of his car, he definitely had already passed New York. And once again we don’t have enough information; Miss Hatchson was able to tell for sure that the car was whether light-grey or white but unwashed. The witness isn’t positive even about the car model. Of course, the police will stop all light-coloured cars, but will these measures give a desirable effect? I don’t know.”

“Why didn’t he wait for a night, Agent Mulder?” Agent Dorris took the killer’s photo in his hands. 

“I’m not sure yet, but I hazard a guess that he began to lose his temper. He didn’t cover the body, for example.”

“Do you think that the tape shows-- ghosts?” Agent Dorris’s voice sounded slightly derisive, but Mulder had got used to it long ago. 

“The experts are working on it, sir.”

****

“How fast do you want these results?” A forensic expert asked Special Agent Dana Scully. Edward Murray heard a lot about the particular division where this woman with titian hair works. Rumors said that Agent Pendrell, his predecessor, who died two years ago, was secretly in love with her, but Ice Queen wouldn’t condescend to mere mortals. So, according to water-cooler gossips, the poor man didn’t get any, besides a bullet to the heart on her birthday.

Damn, she is a dangerous woman.

Although, all red-heads are.

“So when?”

“As always,” Agent Scully replied dryly, hastily buttoning lab coat on the chest. Fierce flame of her hair stood out especially bright against a background of snow-white cloth. “The faster the better.”

“We’ll do all we can, Dan-- I mean, Agent Scully,” Agent Murray answered cheerfully, automatically sleeking his own shock of fair hair, usually tousled, and switched on the equipment. He was truly puzzled when he discovered that she stubbornly refused to call him by his given name; usually female agents easily agreed to it and he liked to be addressed that way. Edward Murray was rather charming, although a little overweight, so few ladies preferred to keep formal distance. 

But Agent Scully was one of them. Well-- so be it.

They’ll have to find out whose blood was on the beard and the gloves, found on the last crime scene.

Whether it belongs to one or two persons-- 

And generally to make the most of this blood clot.

By 8:30 p.m. they had already ascertained that there were two different types of blood on the gloves; the beard contained only one type which belonged to the victim. Blood on the fragments of the broken glass didn’t belong to him.

“Do you need a DNA test?” Agent Murray asked. “It will take time.”

“It may be used as evidence in court,” Agent Scully replied. “We should begin analysis now and finish it as soon as possible. We make do with these preliminary results for a start. Please, also test the blood sample for enzymes and cellular formula.” 

“I’m afraid that we won’t be able to get all you want from this coagulated sample. What are we looking for, Agent Scully?”

“Whatever we’ll find, Agent Murray.”

He began to prepare the specimen, looking at the elegant profile of the young woman who was sitting sideway to him from time to time. Agent Scully was working with an electronic microscope, writing something in her notebook; her lips were pressed together tightly, and it seemed that she was oblivious to what was going on around her. 

“I believe that I’ll get results in two days,” Agent Murray said, sitting down at the lab table next to Agent Scully. “I’m sure it will be a great Christmas present for all members of our division.”

He put filled forms in front of her, touching her hand in process, supposedly by accident, but she withdrew it almost instantly, gave another turn to the eyepiece of the microscope, and looked up at the expert. There wasn’t even the shadow of the grin on his calm and benevolent young Viking’s face.

The equipment hummed in a low voice, the lamp of the electronic microscope buzzed but, in generally, silence reigned in the lab.

“Do you think so?” Agent Scully smiled, and Murray thought that she was committing a crime by wasting her time in the basement with Spooky who would be looking for an absent black cat in a dark room for years and would never notice the beautiful woman near him in the same room.

“Of course,” he confirmed.

At the moment silence was broken by loud ringing of Agent Scully’s cell-phone from her lab coat.

“Mulder?”

“--and it will be a great Christmas present for you too,” Agent Murray calmly finished.

Scully went to the other side of the room and lowered her voice.

“Mulder, I’m in the lab. We’ll finish soon. I have something to say: during the examination of the Prescott’s body I’ve found traces of the fresh frostbites on the skin of his head – generally, on the forehead and the temples. Taking into consideration the fact that the deceased was indoors previous to his death, the source of those marks is unclear; especially, in so uncommon places. Moreover, the form of the frostbites resembles imprints left by fingers, but we couldn’t take the fingerprints. No, I can’t even assume how they formed. Considering what the manager remembered that it had been cold on the sales floor although the heat had been turned on, we should make an inquiry about similar traces on the other bodies; perhaps, there is a connection here. Let them check if the victim from the gas station has such marks… And more. The stab to the heart was made post-mortem. Yes, exactly. Almost immediately, but after his heart had already stopped. I don’t know why. It seems to me that there were too small amount of blood on the crime scene. And the ME thought the same way. All details will be later. Yes. Of course. Immediately. As soon as I can. Sorry, I’m busy here,” the last words Scully said, coming back to the table. She put the phone into her pocket and bent over the microscope.

Murray sighed. Apparently, Mulder doesn’t stand a chance here too.

****  
“Is that you again, Agent Mulder?” Cynthia Middle lifted up her eyes from the keyboard.

“Yes, it’s me again and with the same problem,” Mulder said jokingly and reached out a tape. “We need to know if there are the same phenomena as on the previous ones. And as soon as possible.”

“You have to wait for a while,” she warned and then got down to work. “You can take a seat right there. I’ll try to do it fast. Only for you, Agent Mulder.”

Mulder sat down on the stiff pouf by the wall and stretched his legs. He’d like to wait somewhere else but decided that it would be rude. 

Agent Middle was working in almost complete silence, and her tiny silhouette seemed to be drawn by a black coal against the background of the bright monitor.

“Yes.” When she called him at last, it seemed that Mulder came up from semi-hungry drowsiness; during investigations he often forgot to grab lunch if nobody reminded him to do so. Not to mention dinner. “We have the same picture here, look.”

Mulder bent over the monitor.

He saw the shadows; they were blurred but a little bit sharper than before and still hardly visible even on the processed and zoomed shots. It looked like they emanated coldness and sadness. 

“That’s them,” Agent Middle said. “Do you see? Don’t you think that there are more of them?”

“Yes, perhaps-- And they are a little more solid.”

“Yes, and besides-- I don’t know how to explain it-- But the man became less solid. This is not possible especially because the equipment works like clockwork. Do you need a copy?”

“I can’t ever pay back to you, Agent Middle.”

“Oh, come on, Agent Mulder,” she replied a little sadly. “But we still haven’t got the slightest idea of what it is. Please, don’t tell me that they are ghosts. I’d prefer to think that it’s some kind of rare atmospheric phenomenon.”

“It’s your right. We’ll try to get at the bottom of it.”

Mulder knew who would agree to help him. He gratefully nodded to Agent Middle and left.

****

As they reported about all their findings to the AD, the silence descended in the office. Skinner glanced over the members of the group with tired glance and finally said,

“I’ve just got information from I-87. A guy appeared in a store at a gas station near Rowena an hour ago. He was lean, pretty young and wore unbuttoned coat with a hood over his head. He had a band aid on a finger of his right hand and, according to a witness, was jittery. He came to buy a pack of aspirin and tried to make a conversation with the store’s owner who wore Santa Claus’s costume. The guy seemed nervous, repeatedly wiped sweat. But the owner was as thin as a rake and didn’t put his false beard on that day. Also there were other people in the store. The guy hung around there for a long time, talked nonsense – according to the owner, something about him not being right Santa Claus and the cold grey shadows which were already there. Then he finally exited the store, got into his car and left. Only an hour later when the store’s owner watched news on TV, he suspected that his customer could be the murderer and called the police. He can’t tell us anything concrete about the suspect’s car because it was already dark. He only remembers that the car probably light-coloured, and the guy moved in the direction of Albany.”

“And again we don’t have either a plate number or any other information about driver,” Agent Hughes observed. “Let them check all vehicles. He definitely drives without license.”

“But we have his fingerprint now. Frankly, it’s turned out useless so far because he isn’t in NCIC. Nevertheless, he will be waited in Albany,” Skinner answered. “Thank you all for reports, keep on working. The Albany field office is well informed about this situation. You are dismissed for now. Agents Mulder and Scully, please stay.”

“Yes, sir.”

A few minutes later the conference-room emptied.

“What can you tell me about what have been found on the tapes?”

Skinner sat down in the arm-chair, loosened his tie with familiar gesture and took a sip of his coffee. It hasn’t been his first and even the fifth cup a day. And definitely not the last one. Obviously, he wasn’t going home today – there were the piles of documents on his table and it seemed that the phone’s got red-hot from repeated conversations.

“We are working on it, sir,” Mulder replied. “We are short of information so far; it’s similar to the phenomena on the tapes from some X-files. But it’s still unclear whether they follow this man, lead him or he summons them himself. Then I say “they” I mean some incorporeal objects which, nevertheless, are registered by CCTV cameras. We examined the tapes, but it revealed next to nothing.”

_We?_

Scully’s right eyebrow lifted by quarter of the inch.

_Sure, fine, whatever._

“It’s highly probable,” Mulder went on, “that he is going to kill the real Santa Claus and probably connects this goal with these creatures. Many people with an obsessional idea are certain that they hear leading voices. It also applies to the murders. We’ve sent a request to all mental institutions of the nearest states about their patients, obsessed with killing Santa Claus, and added the fingerprint and the photo which shows a lower part of his face, but still haven’t received an answer. But we made it only half an hour ago.”

“Judging by outer appearance of his notes and the motive, we’ve drawn a conclusion that this man may have mental illness,” Agent Scully added, spreading several forms in front of the Assistant Director. “Also the witnesses from the last crime scene told he obviously was cold. He bought anti-fever medicine twice. The tape from there shows that his very thin jacket was unbuttoned.”

“What does it mean?”

“Whatever you like, sir. Maybe he has a cold, but none of the witnesses reported that he had cough or rhinitis. The level of ferments of cytolysis is considerably higher than normal in the blood samples from the last crime scene; it’s typical for many deceases including a hypertoxic form of schizophrenia. Also the samples show leukocytosis and lymphopenia, and though these signs are nonspecific on its own account, in this case they confirm my thought.”

“So he’s got a fever?” 

“Generally speaking, yes. He is hot. In any moment his condition may get worse dramatically up to a coma. In any case, his condition is highly unstable; perhaps, this circumstance is the reason why his behavior changed when he committed the last murder.”

“Do you suppose that he bought aspirin in the store?”

“It’s possible. But it doesn’t help him, sir, because he took another pack a few hours later. And the main thing: the stab in the heart wasn’t a fatal wound. The victim was stabbed post-mortem. The blow to the head could have knocked him out, but it also couldn’t have killed him.”

“So what is the cause of death after all?” perplexed Skinner asked.

“I think that the forensic pathologists, who performed the autopsies of the other victims, were surprised by the fact that the stab in the heart had been post-mortem. But they haven’t found another cause of the death and stated a stab wound in the capacity of it, although they mentioned weak bleeding,” Scully replied.

“What do you think about it?”

A faint note of uncertainty were heard in her voice.

“Sir-- In the previous cases the MEs made the trepanation of the skull to establish the presence or absence of the intracranial hematomas. There were no signs of them. In two cases of five – in the last ones – were described the change of the vessels and the ventricles of the victims’ cerebrums. Their blood and spinal fluid turned to the ice. Apparently, it caused the death. Per se, it’s similar to the most massive ischemic stroke. It’s more apparent for each following victim, including the last one, sixth. I suspect that if we examine the cerebrum of the first three victims, we’ll see the same picture, but in smaller vessels and in less quantity.”

“Why wasn’t it estimated as the cause of death, Agent Scully?”

“Perhaps, sir, because the MEs didn’t find an explanation of how it was possible,” Scully replied, shrugging. “However, I don’t have it too.”

“Nevertheless, schizophrenia, if he suffers from it at all, doesn’t bring us closer to solving the problem of the artifacts on the tapes, sir. And it’s still unclear how to explain considerable lowering of the temperature around this person and the traces of the local frostbites on the bodies. But if we compare it with the ice in their heads-- We need help, sir. Rather specific,” added Mulder.

“Are you going to ask for it--” Skinner’s expression was more eloquent than any words.

“Yes, I’m going to ask them,” Mulder admitted honestly.

“Well-- Good. If-- you get any new information-- call me.”

Skinner would never admit aloud that he agrees with Mulder’s decision to ask the Lone Gunmen for help, but why to voice it when it’s perfectly understandable without words?

****

“How are the things going in the lab?” Mulder inquired when he drove out from the underground parking lot. It was late afternoon, but the city, decorated with Christmas garlands and shining lights, wasn’t going to calm down anytime soon. People hurried up, pushed each other, moved like living flow through the doors of malls or small stores and, clasping boxes and bundles to their chests, moved backwards. Light snow fell on their heads and melted instantly, not reaching the pavement. A vague, monotonous noise of the crowd was heard in the car through sound of the rush-hour traffic, though windows were rolled up.

“Great,” Scully replied. “You already know all info we’ve got from the blood samples on the gloves; I mean biochemical composition of the blood and its type. The rest of the data isn’t ready yet.”

“Let’s hope the Lone Gunmen will be able to help us,” Mulder said, speeding up. “Or Cynthia Middle’s efforts will be useless.”

“Oh, yeah. Indeed, she was so eager to do it on time,” Scully remarked with biting sarcasm and cleared her throat. She promised herself not to bring up that topic, but words slipped from her tongue before she could stop it. “And she made you a great Christmas present.”

“She did it for the entire division,” Mulder objected, not looking at her; however, he watched the traffic. “Not only for me.”

“Sure. For the entire division.” Scully opened her purse only after second attempt, pulled out a road map, and gathered other things which fell out because of her abrupt movement. “Whatever.”

“Of course. Cynthia is a very dedicated worker; she even stayed late to make a copy of the second tape.” It suddenly occurred to him that perhaps he shouldn’t have called Agent Middle by her giving name.

“Undoubtedly, she is responsible person. And she definitely did it not for you at all,” replied Scully coolly, readjusting her scarf and not looking at the partner.

“I heard you’d got a Christmas present too,” Mulder tried to parry.

Scully bit her lip and added in low, calm voice,

“Yes, Ed was very obliging and promised to run a DNA test as soon as possible.”

In spite of his warm coat, Mulder felt chilled to the bones.

“Ed?” Mulder swallowed and turned the steering wheel sharply. He has come to dislike this name since recently.

“Edward Murray, a forensic expert. He is a very dedicated agent too. Watch out!”

Truly, thought Scully. My tongue is my enemy.

The traffic was heavy, but suddenly a brand new silvery Jaguar cut in and their car hardly avoided collision with it.

“I’m careful. And you, by the way, forgot to buckle up,” Mulder remarked nonchalantly after he gave her a sideway look and didn’t see the black band which always crossed her chest.

Scully jerked the seat belt and tried to buckle it up. When she failed to do it the second time, Mulder cautiously take the buckle from her stiff fingers in his right hand and forcefully put it into the lock. Scully sighed nervously, leaned back on the hard headrest, and shifted her gaze to the scenery out the window.

During the entire ride to the Lone Gunmen’s lair they kept tense silence.


	6. Chapter 6

****

Melvin Frohike’s brown eye suspiciously watched them through the peephole.

“Who is there?” the surveillance systems expert inquired not too politely. Frohike was even more paranoid than Mulder and prepared for any kind of tricks, especially because since the acquaintance with the X-files they had happened to run into some persons who had been able to change their appearance almost as easily as ordinary people change socks.

“Santa Claus,” Mulder replied.

“Haven’t called for!”

“Cut the crap, Frohike, or I won’t give you a Christmas present. I called you!”

“How can I be sure it was you?”

John Byers’s voice reached their ears through the closed door.

“Open up, Melvin. It’s them. They have the real FBI badges and the government-issue weapons. You know I have the special scanner.”

A moment later they heard a slight squeak as Frohike unlocked various locks and bolts. Finally, the door was thrown open, and Mulder and Scully stepped inside.

The Gunmen’s apartment was, as always, dark, cramped, and dirty, but they were absolutely comfortable with that fact. 

The trio obviously was getting ready for oncoming Christmas; on the table among other stuff were a small artificial Christmas tree, generously decorated with old discs, CD-discs in shape of stars, tinsels, paper cuttings bows, multicolored wires, and other fanciful garbage. Hot, spicy aromas were emanating from the kitchen; definitely, John, who wasn’t alien to something more interesting than pizza and hamburgers, had decided to cook some tasty meal. He wore not his customary suit but an apron with colors of an American flag on it which covered his tie and a snowy short.

“We’ve been aware of it for a while.” Always perfect gentleman, Byers helped Scully to take her coat off, getting sidelong glances from Frohike and Mulder in process, but completely ignored their displeasure.

“You mean Santa Clauses’ murders?”

“Of course. We’re getting all police transmission.” Ringo Langly waved his arm at the guests. The pieces of silvery tinsel tangled in his blond hair. “We’re working on it. What do you have?”

“Yeah, you’re always working,” Mulder observed sarcastically, nodding at a beer bottle under Langly’s elbow and the TV set in the corner which showed some languishingly panting semi-naked bimbos. “We’ve got the strange shadows on the tapes. Here is the footage from the four crime scenes and there – from the fifth.” 

Langly reached out, took the tapes from Mulder, and everybody crowded around the table. The Gunmen always displayed surprising enthusiasm for this kind of incomprehensible thing and infinitely rejoiced at the opportunity to solve a new mystery. In this naïve eagerness they someway resembled kids who were looking forward to get Christmas present.

“Strange ghosts,” Byers remarked. “They don’t look like people at all.”

“In your opinion, ghosts have to wear suits and fancy shoes and have a bank account, don’t they?” Langly hummed and began to type furiously. “I’ll try to filter the footage. I’ve written this program recently and this is a good opportunity to test it.”

“Are you sure it’s not a shooting defect?” Scully asked just in case.

“It’s unlikely.” Byers shook his head. “It’s identical on all tapes.”

“But can you tell if this guy has a fever?” Mulder inquired. “He bought antifebrile drugs everywhere he stopped. I know it’s possible to determine on some tapes.” 

“Doesn’t hurt to try.” Langly scratched his chin. “You see, Mulder, this kind of footage demands special equipment-- And special tapes.”

“I get it, but as you said you had cooked up the new program--”

“I won’t be able to provide exact numbers,” Langly replied with hesitation.

“It’s up to you, do what you can.”

“Okay, I’ll try.” Langly kept silence for a while. For the next 15 minutes absolute quietness in the room was disturbed only by tapping of the keybuttons, wanton sighs of the bimbos on TV, and Mulder’s impatient steps across the messy room. Finally, Langly straightened his back and made an inviting gesture with his hand.

“Look.” He moved aside. “Probably, this guy’s temperature is slightly above normal – I can’t tell how much, but he’s surrounded by a low-temperature zone which resembles outlines of your «sort of» ghosts. They are very cold. I can’t define how much but definitely below zero on Celsius scale. Seventy degrees or even more. And they don’t just touch his head. It seems they’ve attached to it and are following him steadily. Besides, their quantity grows from the previous tape to the next one. There is more-- Mulder, on the fourth tape your suspect looks slightly blurry. On the fifth outlines of his body are smudgy. I’d rather assume camera defocusing, but the objects around him looks fine. It’s appeared as if he had grown somewhat transparent. Do you see?”

Mulder nodded, and Langly went on,

“I’ve met a mention of such ghosts once.”

“Where?” Mulder leaned closer toward the monitor.

The Langly’s program definitely worked. 

The bleary shadow-figures seemed to be dark creatures which bore a resemblance to shabby grey trench-coats, flying in the wind. The creatures bent over the man’s head as if touching it by something like hands. They were almost transparent so a background was clear visible through them.

“Where have you met something like that?”

“In mental patients’ delirium.” Langly was deadly serious now, although he was a known joker. “But you must remember such things.”

“It’s impossible to tape delirium,” Scully objected. “Fortunately, it’s incorporeal. Nobody’s been able to record delirium yet because dreams and thoughts aren’t material phenomena. You can record results of electrical activity of the brain and establish whether a person sleeps or not, but there is no way to know what they see during their dreams.”

“It depends. And about corporeality of delirium. Why not? If he really suffers from   
schizophrenia, it’s quite possible. Walter McGraw described a similar event in the magazine «Fate» in 1970. It’s called «tulpa» - a physical incarnation of a materialized thought, or rather, teenager’s hallucinations. That was a ghost of an Indian mongoose from the Irving family’s farmhouse on the Isle of Man back in thirties. McGraw claimed that it even had been able to speak and called itself Gef. McGraw referred to the observations of Alexandra David-Hill, an oriental explorer, claiming that she had watched a phenomenon of materialization during her meditation with Tibetan monks. So, there is nothing new here,” Mulder said thoughtfully, not taking his eyes from the screen. 

Meanwhile, Frohike threw off a pile of newspapers from one of the chairs, hastily dusted it, and then offered Scully who thanked him and sat down. Mulder didn’t even turn his head.

“I mean his delirium can’t be recorded on tape,” Scully said as she took advantage of the Frohike’s offer. “The Irvings farmhouse story doesn’t prove anything. Nobody saw the mongoose; his photos were rather questionable, and there weren’t any valid confirmations of the story, too.”

“Let’s just say that nobody had a close encounter with the phenomenon.” Mulder scratched his chin thoughtfully. “Langly, can we somehow get all related data from mental institutions? They still haven’t answered to the Bureau’s official request about their patients with such delusion.”

“In your opinion, they catalogue delusion? Just as well I can inquire if they have a vacant place for a new patient in some loony bin,” Langly chuckled but nevertheless straightened his glasses and started to tape as if the keybuttons were on fire.

“Well, if you intend to leave our nice company--,” Mulder countered. “We have a photo, but it shows only a lower part of his face.”

“Let’s see.”

Meanwhile, Frohike returned to the room. After he had made sure that Mulder, Langly and Byers had surrounded the computer, forming a tight semi-circle, the little man came closer to Scully.

“Agent Scully?”

“Yes, Frohike?” She turned to him.

“I-- I mean-- I just want to give you a little present.” He suddenly got embarrassed and nervously jerked a button of his coat. “A Christmas present.”

“Oh, Frohike, it’s so sweet of you.” Scully absently smiled at him, just barely lifting the corners of her mouth.

Frohike carefully pulled out a small flat box wrapped in green paper and tied up with a piece of green wire of his pocket, and reached it out for Scully. She took the box in her hand and automatically put it into the pocket of her coat. Frohike sighed; he hadn’t expected, of course, that beautiful Agent Scully’d throw herself into his arms, but at least he had hoped that she’d be somehow interested in his present. 

“I’ve found the records,” Langly announced. “I’ll hack into it a moment.”

“Run him through the databases,” Mulder suggested. “He’s a Caucasian male, quite young; the experts have established that he’s 25-35 years old. Blood group A, Rh-positive. Lean, pale eyes. Yes, leave out all extra criteria-- Yeah, I have his fingerprint, but I don’t think that all mental institutions take fingerprints of their patients. If you find a photo, we’ll compare it with ours.”

“After all, we can get lucky.” Langly made himself comfortable in his whirling chair. Meanwhile, Byers had rumbled with something in the kitchen and soon brought coffee and ginger cookies for the whole company. Langly put the cookie aside and pulled out a bag of chips from somewhere under the table. 

Frohile still shifted from one foot to the other next to Scully, and she involuntary thought that there’d never be perfection in the world, if only this little man in the ridiculous leather jacket would remember about Christmas. However, she too--

“Wow!” Langly joyfully jumped on the chair.

“Did you find him?” Mulder was behind his back in a flash. 

“I’ve cracked it. I mean the common database of the several clinics in the state. I entered   
exclusion criteria, and eventually only 28 medical records matched. There are no fingerprints there so don’t judge me too severely, Mulder.”

“It’s a pity you don’t wear a beard, otherwise you’d pass for Santa Claus. Let me take a look,” Mulder pushed his friend aside and took his seat in front of the computer. He was skimming over the descriptions rapidly when he stopped suddenly.

“Look.”

“What?” Frohike moved the Christmas tree aside, and he and Scully joined the others by the computer.

“Something about Santa Claus?” Frohike inquired.

“No. Frohike, you’d better get this side, you don’t have a clear view from there.” Mulder cleared a space for him. “I’ve found some information about grey shadows. If there had been even a word about Santa Claus in his delirium, they would have informed us already. I think this is the reason we still haven’t got an answer; they haven’t find anybody with fixation on Santa Claus’s murder.”

“Thanks, Mulder, but I’m fine where I am.” Frohike shook his head. “I don’t like whirling chairs.”

Scully curved her lips in a small ironic smile.

“This guy suffers from schizophrenia. His delirium is always the same, I quote «The grey shadows which talk. They look like torn trench-coats. They are cold. There are many of them out there and they grow from my head. They tell me what to do». There is a description down there – it looks very much alike to what we see on the screen. The other patients don’t tell something like that. His name is Brain Edward Benson. He is 24. The guy lives in Albany. His aunt, Lane Rose Lorelly, the sister of his mother, was his official guardian. He lost his parents when he was only 3. In 15 he was diagnosed with schizophrenia. There are only initials of his hospital physician here. The exact diagnosis: paranoid schizophrenia. He graduated from school for kids with disability. He wasn’t admitted to the clinic permanently but was under regular observation and took antipsychotic drugs. According to the last record, he was due for the observation eight month ago-- There are references to the drugs he took here. What does he have against Santa Clauses?”

“It’s written here that he supposes to come for observation every quarter,” Byers noticed. He came back from the kitchen, and Christmas aromas grew stronger. 

“Certainly, something happened--” Mulder started to pace around the room again. “We need to understand what exactly.”

“We should get in touch with his aunt.” Scully turned to her partner. “Maybe she will be able to shed a light on this. If it’s really him, we are looking for.”

“Mulder, you, at least, own us tickets to a baseball game.” Langly shouted as an Indian who caught sight of his prey. “In a festive wrapping. I’ve dug his photo. Let’s compare it with yours.”

“Chill out, Langly. You haven’t found his fingerprints so the tickets are out of question. Scully is right. Get the info on his aunt.” Mulder headed back to the computer, looking at Frohike not too friendly. “It’s highly possible, it’s him. Do his fingerprints appear in some database?”

“Wait a sec, I need to check it out. No, he doesn’t have a criminal record.” Langly’s fingers flied above the keyboard with virtuosity of a piano-player. “I processed your photo and compared it with obtained one. Only lower part of his face is visible on your snap-shot, but it matches with Benson’s photo almost completely. It’s him without a doubt, Mulder. So, now about his aunt--Whoops--”

“What?” All those present raised their heads.

“She died.” Langly whistled. “Seven months ago.”

“Cause of death?” Scully asked.

“Heart attack. Fell asleep and never woke up. They lived in Albany suburbs. Actually, our guy still lives there. Now, he is officially under guardianship of Jane Lorelly’s husband, Arthur Lorelly, but there is not any info about his current whereabouts. Oh, I get a description of the car. Jane Lorelly owned light green 1974 Volkswagen.

“Hooptie,” Frohike drawled.

“You don’t have even this,” Mulder took him down a peg. “All this information is useful, of course, but until we get at least his fingerprint, we won’t be able to tell anything with certainty. Why is he heading to Albany? Is he coming back home?”

“Who knows,” Langly shrugged. “You’re a profiler, you know best.”

He ran his fingers over the keyboard anew.

“There is spam in the e-mail box again-- Frohike, what sites have you surfed again?” Langly frowned. “No, this is not spam. This is a letter. Just too strange.”

“Why so?” Mulder was already dialing Skinner’s number. “It’s not like it signed by Santa Claus.”

“You’re not going to believe it, but it’s exactly how it signed. And the letter addressed to you. Although it has come to my email.” Amazed Langly even took off his glasses and, screwing up his shortsighted eyes, stared at the screen.

Mulder and Scully exchanged glances.

No way it can be real.

***

They won’t find me. They promised I wouldn’t be found. I left a letter for those who are looking for me, asking them to leave me alone. They’ve been with me for years, but they have been waiting for me to grow up. To be capable. They tell me that the world exists because of the miracle. It’s bullshit. There are no miracles. They tell that while Santa exists people believe in him. He must be exterminated, killed, and then people will stop believing in him. But if he’s gone, miracles will be gone too. Then nobody will be loved. Let others will be deprived of love, too. When Aunt Jane was still alive, she made me took pills. And they were silent. But now I don’t take those old pills, because they are nasty, they obstruct my vision. And they talk to me again. Only louder than before. And Aunt Jane—I dreamed that she fell asleep for good. And it really happened. She always considered Brian to be a bad boy. Now she doesn’t think so anymore. But I’m almost out of my new pills. 

Everybody will know about me now. There are no miracles anyway, so if I even kill him, the world won’t change. But I’ll kill him. Why hasn’t he loved me?

There will be many false ones; I mean there, on the skating rink. The day after tomorrow. I’m sure he is going to be among them. And I’ll find him. He hides among the others.

****

“The letter from Santa Claus?” Bewildered Mulder shrugged. “It’s absurd. I’m not a kid to get product news from some advertising company.”

“Maybe you’ve just made a wish, Mulder?” Langly clicked on the file. “And, as result, he answered you. Are you going to read this?”

“Yeah-- In a moment.”

Mulder hurriedly filled Skinner in on what they’d gained from asylums’ databases so far and came back to the computer.

“Scully,” he called. “Look.”

She dumped her mute stocky knight and approached Mulder.

“Read this,” he offered, and Scully sat down on the whirling chair. Mulder let himself bend a little bit closer than necessary, and a weightless red lock touched his cheek.

_“Good evening, Fox and Dana. Probably, you will be surprised to get this letter, but because I’m aware of what’s going on, I consider it my duty to warn you. The man who kills actors in Santa Claus clothes is in Albany at the moment. It’s highly possible that he will try to kill another person there. Probably, he will make an attempt on Christmas Eve in the area of the public skating rink. There will be many people in Santa Claus’s costume, including those among vendors and skate hirers. I will do all in my power to help you. You can find me in Albany at following address: South Pearl Street, 172A. Santa Claus.  
P.S. Merry Christmas to you. And to John, Melvin, and Ringo, too. They used to be very sweet kids.”_

“What a twist!” Frohike snorted. “Is he a hacker? Who wrote this, the killer? Langly couldn’t have possibly been a sweet kid. Why did he call us by our first names?”

Mulder straightened as Scully turned to him and asked, “What’s our next step?”

Mulder considered it for a moment. “We’ll go to Albany.”

“Now? Mulder, it’s past 10 p.m. An attempt to cover more than 300 miles at night and with very high possibility of the incoming snowstorm is not a wise idea. There are more than enough FBI agents in Albany. We need to tell Skinner about the letter.”

“How do you picture it to yourself?” Mulder actually chuckled. “Do you really think he’ll believe that the letter came from the real Santa Claus?”

“Mulder!” Scully’s eyes widened in shock, “Please, don’t tell me you consider the author of the letter to be the real Santa Claus. Santa Claus doesn’t exist; he _**cannot**_ exist. He is just a character of fairy tales, a metaphysical unit, if you wish, which refers to the Three Kings who offered the gifts. There is not such a concept as “real Santa Claus”. It can be a trap! Maybe the killer did write this letter.”

Mulder smiled as he put his hands on his partner’s shoulders and looked into her eyes.

“So, we should investigate this. I have great doubts that the letter has been written by the killer. How could he know that we’d be here at this exact moment when he sent it to Langly’s e-mail – how does he know his e-mail address is another question. Scully, I must check it. If we hurry, we’ll be able to set out around midnight. We can drive in turns. I don’t believe you’ll refuse to investigate it.”

“To drive at night, during the snowstorm? Mulder, you’re nuts.” Scully desperately tried to suppress a smile which threatened to curve her lips. “What about my festive family dinner?”

“I agree, too, that we should search info about a vacancy in lovely warm wards with all inclusive, bars on windows, and padded walls,” annoyed Frohike grumbled. Scully didn’t even remember about his gift when he had taken so much trouble choosing the minuscule green elf in a giftshop. Green colour is a perfect match for her red hair!

“So, are you ready?” Mulder still had fixed her with his eyes. Her cell-phone chose that moment to ring, and Mulder had to put away his hands to let her answer. He’d bet his life that he knew the caller. What a supernatural intuition the captain has!

“Yes,” Scully bent her head to the side and frowned. “No, I can’t. No, we haven’t finished yet—“

“Who is it?” Frohike inquired, watching as Scully knit her eyebrows.

“My guess that it’s captain Scully,” Mulder answered. “And I have a hunch that this time his timing is impeccable-- Can it be that Santa Claus really exists, Frohike? Have you ever made a wish which came true?”

“Usually, I fulfil my wishes myself,” Frohike grumbled. “The truth is, not all of them depend on me.”

“Well-- Guys, try and dream about impossible today,” Mulder smirked. “It seems that one of my wishes has come true.”

“Mulder, does she know about storm warning?”

“I don’t think so, Frohike, and I strongly suggest you to shut your mouth.”

“Billie, I’m not likely to get there on time,” Scully kept explaining. “We are heading to Albany. Yes, of course, to catch the killer, what else can we do? To ice-skate? I’m sorry. Kiss mom for me. Merry Christmas.”

***  
They had to ride over to their apartments to pack.

When they pulled onto the I-95, it was past midnight. 

“I’ll drive,” Mulder screwed up his eyes and turned the defroster on to warm up the windows. “You can nap if you want. I’ll wake you. Have you buckled?” He asked innocently. 

“Yes,” she answered coldly. “Of course.”

“What did you get from Frohike? If it’s not a secret, of course,” Scully came to know a long time ago that Mulder always noticed any small detail. 

“No, it’s not a secret. I don’t know,” she replied, smiling. “I forgot to take a look.”

“Melvin will be in despair,” he curved his lips, returning her smile.

“You can give him your condolences.”

***  
A small green box on the bottom of the purse started to stir, and then a little green man emerged right through its wall. He dusted his silk suit and outspread his wings, wrinkled during his long sitting in the box. The space inside the purse was cramped with other things, so the elf just slipped outside, scattering golden dust around himself; at first, he jumped on the seat and then through it to the engine.

***  
The snow grew heavier at 02:30 a.m., but the traffic had thinned out so Mulder drove the car with confidence. Scully dozed off eventually, throwing the hood of her white coat back and laying her head on the head restraint. Mulder was pleased by it for many reasons. Let her rest; it’s hard to drive at night.

But besides--

He was fighting the desire to reach and touch her cheek with his hand now. Her hair tangled as it often happened before when she fell asleep like that. He longed to touch her pale skin and brush a copper lock away. Lights cast lively shadows on her face, her lips were pursed tightly. Mulder sighed softly; he could entertain the illusions as much as his heart desired, but whoever considered himself to be Santa Claus, he was delusional – Santa Claus didn’t exist.

Unfortunately.

Scully drew a sharp breath, her eyelids fluttered, and Mulder suddenly asked himself what would happen if they just ended up somewhere else? Not here, among noisy highway between two metropolises but in some quiet remote place without a single person for many miles around. Where neither restless captain Scully nor Assistant Director found them just because “the number you have reached is not in service, or temporarily disconnected.” Where the Lone Gunmen trio didn’t crack feeble jokes, and troublemaker Frohike minded his own business.

But all of it laid somewhere on the other side of abscissa, and on this side – the FBI, investigations, murders, and her face was always solemn and grave, even then he talked absolute nonsense. “It’s impossible, Mulder, because—“ And he could catch a glimpse of a softer expression only out of corner of his eye. When she thought he didn’t look at her. When he gently touched her hair with his chin and felt how she tensed, but he pretended that he didn’t notice it-- On the other hand, he might just fool himself.

But sometimes she smiled. And other times – like now – she fell asleep like that, in a car, so her face was close to his face. At moments like those he let his thoughts wander and imagined that--

No. It didn’t have sense. They both were contented with what they had.

Were they?


	7. Chapter 7

Mulder couldn’t help reaching and gently touching her hand, lying relaxedly on her jeans-clad lap. At that moment something rattled in the car, and it started shaking.

Scully woke up in a flash.

“What’s happened?” She sat up straighter and adjusted her green scarf.

“I don’t have a clue,” Mulder grasped the wheel so tight that his knuckles whitened. “Shit, I can barely handle it!”

“We need to stop and the faster the better,” Scully visibly paled. “It’s impossible, the car has undergone MOT test recently--“

“It’s winter, so anything’s possible. Damn, we’ll stick in this snowstorm now. And the temperature is going down. Look at the map. How far are we from the nearest motel? Or a gas station? Some service station? I wish we meet any police patrol,” Mulder stared intently at the road. 

Scully unfolded the map hastily.

“The nearest motel with a gas station is within four miles from here,” she announced at last.

“We can risk and try to pull up there,” Mulder suggested. “The brakes are fine. Scully, please, pray that nobody decides to outrun or cut us off. My prayers may fall on deaf ears because I tend to blaspheme too much.”

***

The little green man flitted from one component of the car to another. No, the vehicle is to reach its destination in one piece.

***

They climbed out of the Ford on rubbery legs, realizing just too vividly that they could have easily got in a car accident. However, they had been able to cover the distance to the gas station and pull up there. So, now they stayed in front of a roadside motel – a long, squat one-storeyed building, seemingly run-down. But beggars can’t be choosers.

“I'll be damned if I understand what’s the matter with it,” Mulder shouted against the howling wind which tore the hood of his coat off and threw a handful of biting, dry snow at his face. “It couldn’t have broken. It’s impossible.”

“But it has.” Scully tried to hide her face from blasts of the wind, pulling the hood over her head. “Is it inhabited at all?”

“I’m afraid that all sane people are sleeping at 3 a.m.,” Mulder cried, trying to outvoice the noise of the blizzard which literally grew stronger with every passing second.

“You’re absolutely right,” Scully replied bitterly.

Nevertheless, in answer to Mulder’s drumming on the window, the owner of that place appeared. He was tall, lean man about 65 years old clad in an old heavy brown parka which strangely made him look like a turtle. He introduced himself as Mr. Bride.

“We are Special Agents with the FBI,” Mulder shouted. “Our car has broken, but we are in a hurry! Can you fix it?”

“Sir, are you crazy?” Mr. Bride attempted to open the hood, but the wind pushed against it from the opposite direction with joyful shriek. “To drive in this weather? The highway is in a good condition, but I still can’t guaranty you’ll reach your destination safely in a rogue car – anything can go wrong. I can’t solve this problem right now, I haven’t been fiddling with engines for a long time because of my arthritis,” the man showed them his frost-bit hands gnarled by the disease. “My nephew will come here tomorrow. He is a good boy and knows cars like the palm of his hand. He’ll fix your vehicle, so you’ll go on.” 

“What should we do?” Scully asked. The wind was so strong it nearly knocked her down.

“Hey, mister, they’ve announced the storm warning!” Mr. Bride cracked the front door slightly open in a welcoming manner. “And you won’t get any other cars around here.”

“I’m afraid we don’t have another choice. Either spending night at the motel or sleeping in the car,” Mulder joked grimly.

“But then we won’t make the wrong choice,” Scully grimaced; snow were clinging to her face, getting into her hood, and tricked down her neck, melting. “So, are we getting in?”

“Yes, we are,” Mulder took their travel bags, locked the car, and followed his partner. 

Neither of them noticed, of course, an odd moving lump in one of the Scully’s pockets. 

A narrow gap, formed by the slightly opened door, widened to the extent of a gorge in the mountains and swallowed two agents hospitably.

***

“There are plenty of vacancies now,” Mr. Bride turned the lights on. “We have too many rivals on this road, so the motel is rarely full.”

By the time the agents shook off the snow from their clothes and took breath, Mr. Bride had found the keys for two rooms.

“Here, the forth and the fifth numbers,” he reached out and gave them the keys, then waited while his new guests signed their names in a thick register and added, “We usually don’t serve dinner so late at night, but if you’re cold, I can brew coffee or tea--“

“We really appreciate the offer, but this isn’t necessary,” Scully brushed wet, because of melting snow, hair away from her brow. 

The prospect of leaving the office and yet again facing the storm to reach their rooms wasn’t especially appealing, but they really didn’t have another choice. The blizzard joyfully slammed the slightly opened door, clinging to their coats, scarves, hair, mercilessly pulling by it and throwing snow which seemed to mainly consist of small ice crystals.

The wind howled slightly weaker near the side of the building where the rooms were. Mulder stopped and turned his back to it, hiding his partner from the wicked weather. He dug in the pocket for the keys and handed to Scully her bag. She grasped it by the strap, and their fingers brushed for a moment. Mulder reached out, took her hand, and softly said,

“Your hands are like ice to the touch. Are you cold?”

Scully felt that her hands were really trembling.

“Yeah-- Perhaps. A little. But yours-- Yours are warm,” she looked up slowly. Mulder pinned her with unblinking gaze. It was like a few weeks ago when she had touched his lips with her fingers, throwing all reasoning and caution out the window.

No. She’d better keep her mind off that.

“After all, should I ask the amiable Mr. Bride to bring us tea?” Mulder suggested, his fingers squeezed her hands again. The wind howled, the blizzard roared, sending the snow flying around, but it seemed as though they suddenly found ourselves somewhere far from the boisterous weather. 

“I don’t think so-- No. Don’t bother. Good night, Mulder,” Scully looked away, bent down, then picked up her sagged bag, and entered her room, closing the door behind her. The pocket of the bag shuddered, and the golden dust poured from it, but neither Scully nor Mulder noticed it.

“Good night, Scully,” Mulder replied softly.

And then he turned, took a step toward the snowstorm, and gave his flushing face to its chilling breath.

***

Unstable, weightless stillness, that takes place only during snowstorms, has settled in. Snow is falling on their shoulders, their bare heads, their faces. Mulder gingerly takes Scully’s hands and brings them to his lips. 

“Your hands are like ice to the touch. Are you cold?” he said, smiling softly. 

“Yeah-- Perhaps. A little. But yours-- Yours are warm,” Dana looks squarely in his eyes. Now she doesn’t avoid his gaze, and the fear of change left out there, far away, behind the wall of silence and white snow.

Fox lightly touches her fingers with his lips.

Almost like a few weeks ago. It’s the same and different at once.

“After all, should I ask the amiable Mr. Bride to bring us tea?” Fox kisses her palm, his lips are traveling higher to her wrists, and now he fears only one thing – that she moves away, pulls out her hand from his grasp, and looks away again.

“I don’t think so-- No. Don’t bother. Good night, Mulder,” her fingers are trembling, her skin are on fire everywhere Fox brushes it with his lips, but she just unable to stop him - she can’t do it. Doesn’t want to. And she doesn’t need any tea.

His palm moves over her forearms, her shoulders, her back, caressing her with hesitation through the thin material of her blouse, and then slides around her waist. She lifts her arms and twines them around his neck, shyly lacing her fingers through his hair.

Like that. It’s so easy actually.

It’s so easy to believe.

They look directly into each other eyes and don’t pay attention to the blizzard which is covering the area around them within many miles. And what they have to do with the snowfall and unknown miles if there are only a couple of inches between their lips now.

One inch.

A quarter of an inch.

Dana feels this first touch, and Fox senses the very same – almost imperceptible, light, slightly bitter fragrance of magnolia-vine and almond, and his breath is caught in his throat. He presses his lips to her semi-opened mouth, nearly falling into non-existence.

The snow is golden and light - like pollen.

***  
I-95, Washington, DC - New York City  
December 23rd, 1999

Scully woke up at 7 a.m. and was just lying in her bed for a long time, sinking back against the pillows and trying to take her breath under control. Sometimes dream and reality are so intertwined that you can’t comprehend whether you’re still asleep or not, and warm breath on your lips from the dream seems more real than a lamp with a fragile glass-shade, a patterned woolen blanket on the bed or cold silk of your own pyjamas.

Any insomnia is better than such cruel divergence from reality.

***

There had been plenty of mornings in Mulder’s life when he had waken up, sincerely hating an alarm-clock which had pulled him out of his predawn dream, but today he was ready to hate the whole world where such things like alarm-clocks ever existed.

Whoever send out dreams, they are cruel creatures, Mulder thought. If the dream is so real that you can sense bitterish fragrance of magnolia-vine and almond when awake, but you know for sure that it’s not possible; if you seem to brushed her lips with your own just a moment ago, and snowflakes burnt your face, then awakening on a limp pillow in the motel room is akin to the most vicious torture.

***

It was rather overstated to call that place even a greasy spoon. A skinny, like her husband, lady with a yellowish, shriveled face, who stood behind the counter of a diminutive café with only two booths, could offer her customers only instant coffee and microwaved hamburgers; they weren’t exactly rubber but not particularly fresh either.

While the uncle and his nephew had been fiddling with the agents’ Ford, Mrs. Bride had been fixing some kind of breakfast for the guests – and not for free at all. Now she rumbled with something behind the white plastic counter, grumbling at the snowfall, her husband, the dysfunctional microwave in particular, and the whole world in general.

Sitting in one of the booths, Scully watched the falling snow through the blurred window; the wind had dropped, but storm clouds went on with their job methodically and patiently. Aromas of fresh pastry, cinnamon, and ginger were permeating the air, but their hostess hadn’t offered them Christmas cookies, while coffee with hamburgers smelt much better than tasted.

Mulder stood by the car, talking to Mr. Bride. The host’s nephew was spreading his arms in perplexity, but she couldn’t hear their conversation. Scully had already drunken her coffee in a paper cup, hardly sensing its taste, and chewed the hamburger, not noticing its filling; her thoughts wandered. Coffee in the second paper cup was getting cold, but Mulder still hadn’t returned; Scully wasn’t sure whether to be upset or glad by it.

But then the hood of the Ford was closed. Mr. Bride’s nephew wiped his hands on a rag and moved to the building with his uncle. Mulder tried to wipe the snow away from the car, although it was an absolutely senseless action, and then peeped into the trunk for some reason. Scully took a deep sigh and decided to concentrate on the case. Yes, undoubtedly, she’d rather think about work. As always.

***

At least they can just sit like this – facing each other, can’t they? Drinking coffee. Listening to each other breath. Listening how the other who you lo-- Listening how he is flipping through an yet another case-file, or rapidly tapping on the keyboard, or just sharpening pencils; he always avoid throwing them into the ceiling in front of you because he is very much aware that you don’t approve it. And you know that he likes it very much so you turn a blind eye on it. You can listen to his never-ending stream of flat jokes and innuendos, can sense how he tenses like stretched string when he has to defend his convictions during yet another chew out session from their superior; besides, you are able to sense it from the opposite side of the table. You can guess what he thinks about – just by a glance, just by a motion of his hand-- You can feel his warm breath on the top of your head in the elevator and sense how he touches your hair with his lips and brushes your sleeve with his own, hoping that you don’t pay attention to it. You can sense his pain and his losses like your own and even stronger. And you forbid yourself to wish something else because you are afraid that if you get it, you’ll lose what you have now.

And you are afraid that it’s just a figment of your imagination, just a wistful thinking. And he touches your hair simply because the top of your head is on the same level with his chin. 

And you reassure, convince yourself that your fear makes sense.

Rather than take a decision and risk once.

No, it’s just mind games that her subconscious plays.

***

Mulder entered the café, letting the crisp outside air burst into the room, shook snow off his hair and coat, and sat in the booth with slight hesitation. Scully pulled the paper cup with coffee toward him, nearly spilling its contents all over the table, and felt that her cheeks flushed bright red. She stood up abruptly, turned to Mrs. Bride, and asked for another cup of coffee.

Think. About. Work.

And refresh the Bureau policy in your memory. Some people follow it to a tee. Yes, the work comes first. Keep it in mind, and everything will be okay.

It never fails.

As she sat down again, Mulder greeted her with thoughtful expression on his face, looking at some point to the left and higher her shoulder.

“Good morning, Scully.”

“Good morning, Mulder,” she echoed, staring intently at some framed photo on the wall behind him and automatically tucking a lock of hair behind her ear. “What’s wrong with our car?”

“You will be surprised but nothing at all,” Mulder replied as he took a sip of his coffee.

Scully was fumbling with a napkin.

“What do you mean?” she specified.

“Exactly what I said. The nephew hadn’t found any failures and declared that he just didn’t see the cause of the steering malfunction. Now it’s fully functional so we can keep going safely. If we get lucky with both the weather and the traffic, we’ll reach Albany in 4-5 hours.” Mulder moved the empty paper cup aside and wrapped the leftovers in a couple of napkins to take it with him.

“But why didn’t it function?”

“I don’t know. Now it’s perfectly functional. Have you paid off?” 

Scully shook her head negatively.

Having seen an FBI credit card, the hostess frantically waved her hand so Mulder, who didn’t want to argue, silently reached out and gave her cash. Scully finished her coffee in two big gulps, hoping against hope that her flushing cheeks could be wrote off on the hot liquid in her cup. Mulder took their bags and went outside. 

\-- When the partners climbed into the car, they studiously avoided looking at each other.

***

The little green man got into the bag. He had a lot to do or they’d never reach the intended destination--

***

There are so many of them. I don’t know which one-- I see worse now. I know there is only one real and I have to find him. But how can I do it? They don’t see, they’re waiting for my help. They are whirling around my head and constantly muttering in my ears.

They’ve never loved me; my Aunt Jane never loved me, too. And Uncle John has never loved me. They are not real.

When Mr. Crosby gave me different pills, he said that the Greys would leave. At first I thought they really left because earlier they had grown from my head and then started whirling around. I thought that’s okay and told about it to the doctor. Mr. Crosby was pleased by it and said that they wouldn’t come again. Mr. Crosby was wrong. They’ve returned and got stronger. There are more of them now. And they’ve got much colder. And vice versa I’m very hot. I don’t like when I’m hot. Brian is hot.

I can’t use my car any more. They are looking for me. They are looking for Brian-- 

And he’s never loved me, too. I don’t care now what will happen to me. They want to get the whole world, so be it. They tell me if he dies, they will be able to get anybody, everyone, and live near everyone, and drink their thoughts-- If he dies, the world will grow grey, cold, and immaterial. Everybody will be like me. There won’t be any love. They tell me that people mustn’t be loved. 

Once I asked them why. They answered that it destroyed the order. I kept silence about my wish to be loved. They’ll kill me if they know. I’d rather kill him.

***

They arrived to Albany around noon. There was quite cold and snowy there; the frivolous Christmas mood was thick in the air.

The local field office had been already enlightened on the matter so they had the suspect’s sketch, the number plate of his vehicle, and his home address; they lacked only his fingerprints. They also knew that he had schizophrenia and had been followed up by a psychiatrist. The local AD, Mr. McGrane, had put an APB on Benson, but nothing had come out of it yet.

McGrane received them during lunch break. The halls at the local headquarters were crowded and therefore noisy – very much alike the headquarters in Washington – but there was almost none of it in his office. A divine aroma of coffee from a cup on the table was permeating the air, making the agents swallow nervously. McGrane settled in the whirling chair comfortably, pushed away a few case-files, and pulled out a big sandwich from somewhere. The chairs for the guests in his office were neither soft nor comfortable, and the federal agents sensed it almost immediately.

“We’ve made an announcement on the local TV,” McGrane told to the Washingtonian agents. “The whole city police are on a constant state of alert. They are looking for the guy, but it’s highly possible that he is hiding somewhere. So, you’re saying he can try to commit murder at the skating-rink? May I ask where have you got this information from?”

“From a source,” Mulder replied shortly.

“And you can’t reveal his identity,” McGrane nodded knowingly, sipping his coffee.

“Of course. Have you got any news from the police yet?”

“No, we haven’t.”

“He is not at his aunt’s house?”

“It seems the house’s been empty for at least three weeks. According to the neighbours, Brian Benson always has been a withdrawn, autistic guy, but absolutely harmless. On the other hand, nobody’s known him well, except his aunt. Jane Lorelly had died six months ago from heart attack. After that Brian spent nearly all the time inside, rarely leaving the house by car. It’s not clear how and why he did that because he didn’t have a driver’s license. We are also checking out why police didn’t pay attention to that fact. The last time the neighbours saw him was three weeks ago; we couldn’t get anything more concrete from them,” McGrane screwed up his eyes, crossing his arms above his protruding belly which threatened to escape from confides of his business shirt. “They assumed that Brian had finally moved to her ex-husband, his uncle, who lived in California. So, they weren’t the least bit concerned. As a matter of fact, Agent Mulder, why haven’t I got a call from the headquarters about your arrival?”

“Because the decision was made late at night,” Mulder answered without batting an eyelid. “Based on the new information. But the Assistant Director is informed.”

“Thanks for your help. It won’t hurt, although I think we’d manage on our own. Why is the special division involved in this investigation?” McGrane ruefully shook the cup with the remnants of the coffee in it.

“Because this special division has something to offer,” Mulder replied.

McGrane grunted skeptically. He was familiar by hearsay with said paranormal division, and, like many others in the FBI, believed that it’s just a waste of the tax money, the Bureau resources, and nerves of superiors. However, Agent Mulder, whom McGrane hasn’t known personally but heard a lot of, seemed to be quite reasonable - let alone Agent Scully.

“Who was Benson’s personal physician? Have you sent a request to the mental institution where he had undergone the course of treatment?” Scully inquired, trying not to breath in the aroma of coffee. It considerably differed from the scent she had smelled in the greasy spoon by the motel. “We need to talk to him.”

“The doctor’s name is George Warren Crosby.” McGrane hesitated for a moment and then added, “He hasn’t been seen at work for the last two days; it seems he has felt ill so he is on sick leave now. We asked him to call us; police officers went to his apartment, but the doctor wasn’t able to give us any useful information. He only told that the guy had been delusional for a long time, but he had always been quiet and peaceful, always eager to get better, and his delirium hadn’t been dangerous for other people. The doctor didn’t have a clue why the guy had suddenly set off for a murder spree. Crosby also didn’t know where he could be. I don’t think he will be any help. If you need his home and work addresses, you should ask Agent Dale. 

“Where can we find him?” Mulder inquired, getting up; the chair he’d been sitting in started to seem rock hard to the end of the meeting.

“The second door on the left down the hall. Look, Agents--” McGrane suddenly trailed off, twisting a pen in his fingers nervously.

“Yes, sir?” The agents were ready to leave but stopped in the doorway. 

“I’d really appreciate if you remembered that, first of all, this is a serial murders case. The guy obviously has cracked a long time ago, and we can expect absolutely anything from him, but that’s it. There are no ghosts or other paranormal phenomena here. Thanks again for your help. The whole city police are fully alert; all actors, who play Santa Claus’s role, are sent home for today, and tomorrow we’re planning to set out bait. I believe that I’ve made myself clear.”

“Crystal clear, sir,” Mulder nodded. “But I disagree with you on a paranormal aspect of this case. I hope we’ll get all information we need regarding the doctor.”

“Certainly. I suppose we understand each other.”

“Merry Christmas to you too, sir,” Mulder smiled friendly and followed Scully from the office.

“Look, Mulder, does Skinner ever know we are here?” Scully whispered indignantly.

“Undoubtedly, he will soon,” Mulder murmured, slightly pushing her to the door they needed. “Let’s go. We should hurry until McGrane changes his mind. However, we have our own information sources, don’t we?”

“Who are you calling?” Scully asked when Mulder pulled out the cell phone from his pocket.

“To Santa Clause’s aids,” Mulder replied, dialing. “I want to give a golden hair, spectacled elf the last chance to earn those baseball tickets.”

***

Agent Dale was able to spare just a minute of his time for the Washingtonian colleagues. From all information about the psychiatrist he could provide them only with his full name, home address, and also the address of the medical facility where he worked. Agent Dale was in a hurry; he held the receiver with one hand, rapidly wrote something in his notebook with the other hand, and reminded thrice during their 60 second long conversation that he still hadn’t seen an official document from the headquarters which gave those agents from the “paranormal” division a permission to pursue that investigation. Strictly speaking, agent Dale lost all his interest in the psychiatrist after he had found out that the doctor didn’t have a slightest idea where his patient might be.

So, Mulder and Scully left the local field office in not that despondency but rather in slight perplexity.

“There are some incongruities here. Do you remember the last entry from the file, Langly had found, was seven month old? But the police were told that Benson made follow-up visits regularly. Why did the good doctor lie? Wanted to cover up his patient?” Scully mused. “Maybe we should have told to Dale and McGrane that the doctor had lied.”

“What for? We’ll interrogate him ourselves. For a start. Then we’ll see. Well, are you ready to visit Santa Claus?” As he slid in behind the wheel, Mulder pulled out the letter, they printed at the Lone Gunmen lair, from his pocket. 

There was quiet warm inside, so Scully unbuttoned her coat and took off her scarf. As she buckled up, she shook her head dubiously.

“I don’t know, Mulder. I don’t like this entire situation; who can pose himself as Santa Claus?” 

“Why can’t you accept the possibility of Santa Claus existence?

“Oh, come on, Mulder, you can’t be serious. That’s you who always insisted that Santa Claus didn’t exist, and now--“ Scully waved her hand impatiently.

“What if I was mistaken?” Mulder mused, smoothing the letter on his lap. “Why don’t you believe in it?”

Scully said nothing.

“We have another oddity here,” Scully unfolded a city map and took a close look at a dense web of streets, roads, and buildings. “What is his house number?”

“172A.” 

“There is no building with such number out there. Actually, there are no buildings on this street with a letter in its number. Mulder, somebody is just messing with our heads. Maybe that’s the Lone Gunmen who are trying to play a hoax on us?”

“Langly has a particular sense of humour, I give you that, but he’d never come to such idea. Oh, speak of the devil,” Mulder pulled out the phone from his pocket. “Mulder’s here.”

When Langly disconnected several minutes ago, Mulder said softly,

“The plot thickens. At first, the records, we had a chance to run through yesterday, is not available now – most probably, it’s deleted. Those were doctor Crosby’s personal records. Secondary, the files with information on our doctor himself are sanitized drastically. Now they consist only the basic facts of his biography: born, graduated, married. These alterations were made last night.”

Mulder looked at his partner. Now, when they had those new developments, they could discuss it as always and stop thinking about last night.

After all, it was just a dream.

“What a twist!” Scully raised her eyebrows in surprise. “Why is he trying to cover his tracks? He is just a personal physician.”

“Maybe he suspected or knew that Benson was dangerous but didn’t do anything about it. And now he is afraid of punishment for his inaction. Santa Claus obviously will be waiting for us whether he is real or not. But the doc may break into a run.” Mulder started the car. “Let’s go. Langly will try to dig some more information on the doctor – wherever he can. Meanwhile, those strange shadows still bother me, especially their growing quantity from tape to tape. And their low temperature. Langly promised to call as soon as he got something.”

“I think we should start with the doctor. McGrane said he was at home. The local police aren’t interested in his testimony, but they should be. Do Skinner and McGrane know that the records have been altered?” Scully folded the map and put it into the glove compartment.

“I doubt whether they had time to make first request before the files had been tampered with. It seems we are the ones who know about it. So, I think we have to bring Skinner up to date, but first I suggest paying a visit to the doctor.”

“This is violation of the Bureau policy.”

“So, we’ll have to violate it,” Mulder replied nonchalantly, pulling out a dime from his pocket. “Wanna toss a coin?”


	8. Chapter 8

***

A half hour later there was an insistent knock at the snow-white door with the plate “George W. Crosby, MD” on it.

The federal agents had been waiting for at least five minutes while someone at the other side of the door had been scrutinizing them through the peephole. Finally, they got tired of it.

“We are Special Agents Mulder and Scully with the FBI. We’d like to ask you some questions about one of your patients, Doctor Crosby. Just as easily you could examine us inside,” Mulder shouted.

There was no answer.

“Doctor Crosby, we know that you’ve been already questioned by the police,” Scully shivered; the temperature in Albany had lowered to five degrees above zero. They had to tread the pass through the snow from the car to the front door because the ongoing blizzard had covered the pass that the police officers had trodden in the morning. “But since then new evidence has become available, so we want to make clear some details.”

“I’ve told the police everything I know,” was the only answer from behind the closed door. “I have nothing to add.”

“So retell us your story,” Mulder suggested. “Especially we’d like to hear about alteration of the facts in your personal files.”

There was a dead silence behind the door.

But just a moment later the partners heard some thud and the noise of the deadbolt being unlocked. 

“Come on in, damn you,” the doctor snapped.

As the federal agents passed through, he closed the door, locked, and bolted it once again.

***

The doctor was thin, tall, and obviously exhausted by insomnia. He neither paid any attention to the agents’ credentials, nor offered them to seat, not to mention coffee. Not that they counted on it.

“What do you want? I don’t know where Benson is and I don’t have the slightest idea why he is killing people in a Santa Claus’s costume.”

“And you don’t care much about his motives,” Mulder nodded in agreement.

“Exactly,” Crosby replied.

“That’s why you’ve locked yourself inside as if in a besieged fortress,” Scully pointed at the deadbolt. “And claim to be ill.”

 

“I have nothing to be afraid of,” the doctor lifted his pointed chin abruptly. “And I've really caught a cold,” he added in perfectly clear voice.

“So why are you scared then? You know, we asked your neighbours and ascertain that you had walked freely and not bolted your doors until quite recently. Why have you decided that your former patient is killing people in Santa Claus’s costume?”

“I’ve decided nothing of the kind,” his Adam’s apple bobbed nervously. “The police called me and told that Benson was responsible for those murders. He had been identified from a photo. They asked me some questions and I told them everything I know.”

“But you had condemned yourself to self-imposed isolation three days ago, while the police called you just this morning,” Scully pointed out. “Are you afraid of him yourself? Do you fear that he’ll come for you too?”

Doctor Crosby clenched his teeth and flexed his jaw muscles.

“No, I don’t. I have nothing to fear.”

“Doctor Crosby, let’s calm down and talk it over,” Mulder unbuttoned his coat and sighed; there was very hot in the doctor’s house, but it seemed that the doctor himself, clad in a warm knitted sweater, didn’t feel the heat. “May we sit down after all?”

“All right. Otherwise you’ll never leave me alone,” Crosby agreed half-heartedly and led his uninvited guests to the living room. 

There was even hotter there; in addition to the central heating, the room was also warmed by the fireplace. Bright hissing embers jumped out of the flame from time to time and fell to a tin sheet on the floor. The table by the fireplace was covered by the latest issues of newspapers, some documents, and books; the remote, an opened pack of crackers, and a seltzer bottle added to all the mess. By a ceiling high window was an artificial Christmas tree decorated with garlands. The windows overlooked a small garden completely covered by snow. 

The three walls of the room were lined with ceiling-high bookcases, densely filled with books. The books actually occupied the whole space; piles of them lied by the walls, in the chairs, and near the bookcases, ragged bookmarks stuck out from many of them.

Mulder and Scully pushed a few piles of the books aside and sat on the small couch opposite the fireplace. The doctor preferred to take the chair by the table.

“We are Special Agents with the FBI,” Mulder reminded him. “Our division investigates cases with any signs of-- unusual phenomena in it.”

“There is nothing unusual in schizophrenia.” The doctor started automatically rearranging the documents and newspapers on the table in a vain attempt to show order. 

“I’ve never said there is, but we’ve run into some-- oddities in the Benson’s case. Please, tell us about him. I mean, about Benson.” 

“It was my understanding that you’d got access to my personal files illegally,” the doctor noticed. “But it’s of no interest for anybody.”

“Well, you can voice your protest, but still we’d like to know why, if the information in those files hadn’t been important, you deleted it? And why did you not tell the police and the FBI about your patient who had been obsessed with Santa Claus’s murder though you were aware of such request?”

The doctor sighed.

“Brian Benson has been suffering from schizophrenia since he was 15. He had been living with his mother’s relatives since the age of three because his foster parents had perished – his father had been killed in a car accident, the mother had died from leucosis a half year later. When he was 15, he got to know he had been adopted. Then he had the first attack of the decease. It was successfully arrested, and hereafter the decease took its normal course, without crises. He got all prescribed therapy, and every three months his aunt brought him for regular follow-up visits--” 

“And then?” Scully prompted.

The doctor took a deep, nervous sigh.

“Then his aunt died, and the visits stopped. It was my duty to ensure that his follow-ups would go on, but I left things to chance. I had-- I had too many other patients in more serious condition at that moment. That’s the information I deleted. All of it.” The doctor straightened in the chair and looked out the window.

The agents exchanged glances.

“Tell us more about his obsession,” Mulder asked.

“He described cold grey shadows which surrounded him and whispered that nobody loved him. Actually, this is one of the most common variations of delirium for people who suffer from the Kandinsky-Clérambault’s syndrome.” 

“Did he mention that they ordered him to kill Santa Claus? Did he keep getting his prescribed medicine after his follow-up visits had stopped?” Scully inquired. 

“No, he didn’t tell about anything like that. Therefore, it never crossed my mind to inform the police about him. As for medicine-- I-- I don’t know. He had to, but-- His uncle became his official guardian after Mrs. Lorelly’s death. You should ask him. I supposed that Brian had moved to him in California.”

“Would his condition have got worse if he had stopped taking his medicine?”

“Quite possible.”

“How do you think, Doctor Crosby, whether a patient’s delirium might materialize?” Mulder asked.

The doctor winced slightly, but it hadn’t escaped the both agents’ notice.

“You talk nonsense,” Crosby poured some mineral water into his glass. “Nonsense. It’s impossible. How something like this ever occurred to you?”

Instead of answering, Mulder cleared some space on the table to lay out a few photos in a semicircle. 

“Look at this. It was captured on CCTV cameras.”

The doctor reached out and took one of the prints cautiously. He was studying it for a long time, and then turned his attention to another one that Langly had made, using a thermographic camera.

“I don’t know what it is,” he said finally. “I have no idea how it could happen. But if you’re trying to say that this image, captured on the camera, resembles the things that Brian described, I’ll have to agree. Nevertheless, I can’t draw any conclusion from this fact because I’ve never seen anything like that. And I don’t even believe it’s possible.”

“Where can we take a look at the Benson’s patient record?” Scully inquired.

“It’s in an archive. What do you want it for? You’ve got everything you need and already come very close to catching him.”

“He’ll have to undergo evaluation of his competency to stand trial,” Mulder said. “And you know it. Besides, we’ll be probably able to determine where he may be hiding. Is it so difficult to get an access to the archive?”

The doctor hesitated for a moment and then replied,

“I think you’ll have to be grubbing for it for a long time. We don’t have a detailed archive of patient records. Just a short version that you’ve already read. Illegally, I must add.”

“Was the Mr. Benson’s therapy anyhow amended?” Scully asked.

“No, it wasn’t,” the doctor replied hastily. “There were no changes. He underwent a standard treatment. Perfectly common.”

Scully nodded knowingly. It was obvious the doctor lied, and he seemed to understand his lie hadn’t gone unnoticed.

“But still, why do you lock the door? You weren’t letting us in for at least five minutes. Are you afraid he’ll come here? But what can he do to you? You’ll always manage to call the police,” Mulder nodded at the phone on the mantel.

The doctor stood up, moved closer to the fireplace, run his hand over the receiver, and replied bitterly,

“Agent Mulder, you know better than me that the Benson’s behaviour is nearly unpredictable now.”

“Do you know if he has other relatives or close friends in Albany?” Mulder asked, taking out a notebook.

“He doesn’t have any relatives and has never had friends. He has been autistic since the childhood and scarcely socialized. I don’t have a clue where he could go.”

Obviously, by that time Crosby had already told them everything he’d been willing to share.

As the agents rose from the sofa, one of the book piles slid to the side, and volumes fall to the floor. Scully apologized for the mess they’d made and started picking up old magazines and books, but the doctor stopped her.

“Thanks, I’ll manage.” He began to stack the crumbled items back together. 

“Please, call us if you either obtain some new information,” Mulder gave the doctor his business card, “or remember something. Here is my phone number. And, of course, you can always call the police.”

“Yes, okay-- thanks,” Crosby indifferently took the cardboard rectangle with two fingers and dropped it on the floor, in the load of garbage, without looking.

***

Having crossed the threshold, the agents heard the sound of the door being deadbolted thoroughly.

While they had been talking to Crosby, the snowfall had covered their tracks completely.

“What do you think about all of this?” Scully asked as they made their way through the snow to the car.

“He obviously lied to us, didn’t he?” Mulder fished for the keys in his pocket.

“Without a doubt. And I noticed that he had done more than just read the latest issues of newspapers this morning. Mulder, all the literature on his table describes different treatments of schizophrenia, not just by antipsychotic drugs.”

“He is a psychiatrist, Scully. It’s his sphere of interest.”

“I agree, but he took out almost all materials he has on the matter. Why did he need to refresh his memory about the subject so suddenly, on Christmas Eve? Including clinical pharmacology of anxiolytics? There were June and July issues of Journals of Clinical Pharmacology. Benson had stopped his follow-up visits in May. Just a coincidence? It’s possible, but too convenient in my opinion. I don’t rule out that his current condition is a direct result of the treatment. In this case, the doctor is responsible implicitly for the Benson’s erratic behavior. We need to look through those journals-- What are you doing? What’s happened?”

Meanwhile, Mulder had tried to unlock the car door for the fifth time.

“I don’t know. It seems that the lock has frozen, damn it.”

“What do you mean “frozen”?!” Scully cried with astonishment. “It’s impossible.”

“Look for yourself.”

Scully crouched by the door.

“Mulder--“

“What?”

“Probably, somebody has just poured water into the lock.”

“Who? Benson?” Mulder opened the trunk; its lock functioned faultlessly.

“What are you going to do?” Scully straightened. 

“I’ll use a lighter to try and melt it,” Mulder started digging in his bag.

Scully walked around the car.

“Mulder,” she called. “Look.”

The windshield that had been transparent a half of hour ago was covered by rime now. The outlines that vaguely resembled a head and fingerprints of pentadactyl hands, quite similar to human ones but with thinner and longer fingers, were distinguished clearly in its frosty patterns.


	9. Chapter 9

***

I’m hot. My head is buzzing. They push me, They are hungry, They demand food. There are more and more of them. They took something from those, from others. I don’t know what exactly, but it wasn’t enough for them. They mustn’t pretend to be him. Must not. They are not him. Why do they do that? But it’s not my fault; after all, this is not him.

I want to go home, but they tell me that I can’t return. I don’t know where to go. They promised that they would lead me to the good place. I’ve had to leave the car behind because They said that the police were looking for it. They said that Brian was a bad boy and he let himself to be seen. So what? Brian isn’t to blame yet. He is still alive.

For some reason I don’t want to eat at all. I don’t want to sleep either, but earlier I wanted all of these things – everything was different then. And now They're not to be found anywhere; I approached the window and looked out, but saw none of them. They’d disappeared somewhere. Other people said that they would gather tomorrow in a crowded place. In the place with very cold water. Smooth as glass.

Two are looking for Brian. Many people are looking for Brian, but these two know. They say these two know about them. And about me. I can’t stop them; they can hurt Brian. I wanted to stop their car, but someone very hot was inside. He didn’t let me in, and They couldn’t have got there; They just stroked the glass but couldn’t have got there. 

I’ve run out of the pills, and I feel really bad without them. I’m very hot. I need more pills.

And I have nowhere to go.

***

The little green man was sitting inside the car. He knew that he wouldn’t be seen so he had poured golden dust to keep the Barren Essences away. Probably, he shouldn’t leave this place until everything is done. If he leaves it early, the verge will fail to thin enough--

***

“What does it mean, Mulder?”

“I think he was here,” having warmed up the lock with great difficulty, Mulder melded the ice in it, and finally opened the door, “and had frozen our car.”

“Mulder, we still don’t get an explanation for those images on the CCTV footage.”

“Thanks for your readiness to admit their existence at all,” Mulder grinned joylessly as he slid in behind the wheel.

Scully eased herself into the passenger seat and looked at the windshield, entirely covered with the icy patterns. She had still avoided looking Mulder squarely in the eyes although it seemed she should have got that random dream out of her head by now. Especially since we aren’t free to choose our dreams.

Well, usually we aren’t.

“Yes, Mulder, I agree that there is something unexplained on the footage, but I still don’t understand how those “cold grey shadows” from a schizophrenic’s delirium could have left a print on the tape. We need to comprehend how it became possible.”

“I’ll give a call to McGrane. Let him place the doctors’ house under constant surveillance. Benson is hereabout, and we should be looking for him here. Let’s check out his patient record.”

“I’m not sure we’re going to discover something useful there. The description of his treatment will hardly help us to find him.”

“But we must find him. And I’m afraid that our time is running short. We need to get in touch with McGrane and then head back to the office.”

“He’ll be just delighted with new paranormal aspects of the case,” Scully murmured. “Mulder, turn the heating on, please; we can’t ride in a frozen car.”

“But then we’re going to destroy the evidence,” Mulder mused. “These fingers-- Do you remember those frostbites on the victim’s head? They are the same, don’t you see?”

“So what do you suggest? To walk to the local office? Or maybe tow the car there? Even if these ‘look like fingers’ prints are going to match those frostbites, it will take us nowhere. We won’t get closer to catching Benson because his own fingerprints from a gas station in Rowena don’t match them. I had checked it out in Washington before we left.”

“We’ll have to tow the car indeed,” said Mulder after the brief contemplation. And then added, “I’m going to pressurize McGrane into running forensics over the car. Will you manage to get to the archive on your own?”

***

A half hour later a tow truck took away the federal agents’ Ford.

The house with the still closed door had been placed under surveillance. 

Mulder and Scully had to think hard to explain the necessity of running forensics over the frozen windshield, but a call from Washington helped McGrane to see the reason in that procedure, although the local AD had never got to the bottom of it. For his part, Mulder got chewed out by his irritated superior over his latest self-willed actions.

At the end of the Skinner’s tirade the agent just shrugged and inquired whether they should go back to Washington. Not less irritated voice on the other end of the line snapped, “Keep working, Agent Mulder, and report about any findings immediately.”

He couldn’t ask for more.

***

\-- The Benson’s record was hard to find indeed.

“It’s been asked for the umpteenth time recently,” Mrs. Travel, a chubby elderly woman, was displeased. The archive of the clinic was in her care, and she had sincerely thought that it was a perfectly quiet job consisted of drinking coffee, watching TV, and reading today’s newspapers. In her opinion, to look over the copious amount of folders on a daily basis was just too much.

Having pursed her lips angrily, Mrs. Travel cleared for Scully some space on the table. The federal agent’s badge had failed to impress the lady, and she reminded dryly that it was forbidden to seize the record without a warrant. After Scully assured her it wasn’t the case here, Mrs. Travel relented slightly, but for the most part her hostile attitude hadn’t changed.

The small room adjoined to the archive was semi-dark, cramped, and stuffy. Breathing in the dry, dusty air, Scully started thoroughly paging the record in poor light of the table-lamp; there wasn’t even a window in that store room.

*** 

 

In many years Scully often had had to expend some extra efforts to concentrate on the case. But today she had an especially hard time doing that. She were turning over the yellowish pages covered with cramped handwriting, looking through the copious test results, but her thoughts turned to other directions occasionally and brought back to memory that insane snowy dream. The semidarkness that dominated the room contributed to it even more.

The other side. 

Dreams live in our subconscious mind; they are our underlying desires and wishes. They may never come true, but they are able to play a role of a pointing finger when we’re mistaken. Nobody knows who sends them to us; maybe we call for them themselves when we want it or maybe someone wills it so.

You live, you breath, you think in tune with somebody, and sometimes you are astonished at this fact because it seems you don’t have much in common with this ‘somebody’. What an odd, impossible paradox; on the one hand, you know everything about this person – up to his childish fears and nightmares, fluttering of his eyelashes and outlines of his face, every timbre of his voice and familiar gestures – and yet you can discover a new side of him every day-- 

But you can’t discover all of them; some doors are still closed.

So you stand in the semidarkness and hesitate to even push this door because you are afraid that it’s sealed. But you actually need no more than reach out-- Take a step.

And the dreams will come true.

But there won’t be going back.

And that’s what you are afraid the most.

Because you don’t know for sure what exactly is in store for you behind this door.

***

Scully screwed up her eyes for a moment and tossed her head, so orange spots started jumping behind her closed eyelids, and the golden dust poured from her hair. 

Look in there. Into the journal. Because there are important things and there are personal ones, and they aren’t always the same. 

\-- An hour later Scully found everything she had supposed to discover.

“Do you have filings of the Journal of Clinical Pharmacology here?” she inquired.

Mrs. Travel frowned even more.

“Do you really need them?” her tone was barely polite.

“Yes, I do,” Scully said dryly. “Please, find me all issues for this year,” she added with the straight face.

Mrs. Travel rose reluctantly and disappeared behind the shelves, grumbling something unintelligible to herself. When she was back with the piles of journals ten minutes later, she threw them on the table in front of Scully, lifting a cloud of dust in the process, and then took her seat with clear intention not to leave it today any more.

Scully moved the journals closer to her, adjusted the lamp, and delved into the materials.

“May I make a call from here?” she asked a little bit later, nodding at the phone near an Mrs.Travel’s elbow. “And would you be so kind to bring all issues of the Journal of Clinical Pharmacology and Psychiatry for the last five years.”

Mrs. Travel nodded grimly.

***

“In my opinion, you are just wasting our time,” McGrane had decided to watch personally the process of fingerprinting the windshield of the Washingtonian agents’ Ford. He wouldn’t have sanctioned it and involved his people for some obscure goal, but that procedure had also been requested by AD Skinner, so he had to follow Agent Mulder’s lead. To make matters worse, they were forced to do it outside to ensure that the frosty patterns on the glass wouldn’t melt.

He is Spooky indeed, McGrane thought as he watched closely his Washingtonian colleague who breathed down a forensic expert neck. All the other methods of Agent Mulder, who was known for his analytical skills, was fine with McGrane, but when it came to such things, he started feeling as if he had been told that the Earth lied on elephants and a turtle rather than moved around the Sun. He didn’t like it when his perception of the world underwent dubious experiments. As for the rest, he could give it to that Spooky - he definitely was good at what he did. He should have stuck with catching murderers and serial killers rather than with wild-goose chase for flying saucers. What a waste of such brilliant mind!

McGrane sighed. They yet had to prepare for the tomorrow operation. He had wanted to include those agents in the group, but AD Skinner ordered to give them freedom of action. Well-- He only hoped that they would keep out of his people’s way. Anyway, there wouldn’t have been any person in a red costume and with a fake beard on the streets till the next morning.

***

At last the forensic expert left after having made photos and promising to send the results to the Washington office as soon as possible. Mulder climbed into the car and turn the heating on. Then he leaned back on the seat, and it seemed he even dozed off for a moment.

All that fuss-- The whole day they were busy as bees. Probably, it was for the best. To stay at the office within four walls would be unbearable. That way he just didn’t have enough time to think about some things for those there was no time; didn’t have an opportunity to breath in the bitterish fragrance-- Instead he could have a lungful of smoke from the cop’s cheap cigarettes, exhaust gas, and someone else’s fear.

Friends. Mulder grinned mirthlessly.

Yeah, friends.

And all the rest, probably, is just a figment of his imagination. Including an old bruise on his cheekbone.

A dream or a reality? A reality or a dream?

\-- When he had been four, an idea of enrolling him into a musical school had had into his parents’ heads. He had been showed the door two weeks later because of complete lack of an ear for music. Growing up he came to realize that his ear wasn’t the only part of him which was made of tin. 

\-- Because sometimes when he looked into her eyes, listened to her voice, and tried to understand her real thoughts and feelings, he felt the similar helplessness. As though he once again tried to grasp the difference between “In Peggy lived gay goose” and "Ode to Joy" which seemed to be a nearly identical set of sounds for him. At some moment you think that you’ve got it, guessed, heard, but in the next second you understand that these are not the solemn sounds of the Symphony No. 9, performed by an orchestra, but rather simple thrum, played by only one finger.

Or vice versa?

Looking at the blurred drops of the melting ice on the glass and the smudged outlines of the white fingers, he had felt the cold that surrounded the murderer of “Santa Clauses” for the first time. That was the kind of cold which made his way deep into the heart and left just a raw emptiness behind.

***

“Mulder?” Scully called, trying not to look at Mrs. Travel who was deliberately uncovering big sandwiches with salad and chicken; now even those stale hamburgers seemed to be like a dream come true for Scully because the afternoon was well along, and she was getting really hungry.

“Yeah,” Mulder’s voice reached her ears, “it’s me. Have you got something?”

“Even more than we anticipated,” Scully said. “What is the title of that magazine you mentioned when we were at the Gunmen’s?”

“Fate.”

“The very same magazine I saw on the sofa in the doctor’s living room, Mulder. There were several issues of it; I dropped them to the floor, remember? They were old, battered. He rushed to pick them up then. It seems he read the same McGraw’s article because he has been trying to publish the results of his research in different Journals of Clinical Pharmacology and Psychiatry for the last three odd years.”

“How do you know that?” Mulder’s tone got strained and cautious abruptly; now he resembled a hound when it finally had pick up the trail. The inertness he indulged himself in just a moment ago disappeared without a trace. 

“I called to the editorial office. There are journal filings for several years here, in the archive. His article that concentrated on the treatment of schizophrenia was published; he suggests his own method allegedly developed on the basis of the Tibetan monks’ recipes in it. Do you see?” Scully put aside some issues she needed, taking no notice of the Mrs. Travel’ expression.

“Go on,” Mulder put the car into gear hastily. “I’m on my way.”

“You’re breaking the law, Mulder. You’re not supposed to speak over the cell phone while driving.”

“Except for emergencies. You do it yourself regularly. Well, what’s next? What goal did he try to achieve with his treatment?”

“To find a cure for schizophrenia, of course. In the beginning of the article he tells about elimination of delirium from a patient’s brain by using some Tibetan monks’ technique. It’s hard to determine for sure which part of it is valid and which one was invented by the doctor himself. He added a drug made of different herbs, minerals, and some unknown to science mountain oil, allegedly produced in Tibet, to his course of therapy; in his opinion, it helped to rid his test subjects of the positive symptoms of the disease. He wanted to patent it, but the article was cried down by many critics – mainly for the absence of the authentic test results, the lack of explanation of the impact of the drug on a human body, and the general weakness of the theoretical background. The article was published three and a half years ago, Mulder. Since then Crosby has sent new articles and research results to these journals at least two or three times a year, but everywhere has been turned down because editors has doubted its reliability, and the theoretical foundation has been still weak. The second - and the last - article was published in this June issue; it describes a medical case resulted in a successful healing of delirium.”

“Does it contain a patient’s name?”

“Mulder, the medical ethics bans using patients’ full names, only initials.”

“So?”

“Patient B., 24 year old,” the journal was opened on the page with the Crosby’s article, so Scully was ready to read out the whole text if required. 

“Benson.”

“Yes, obviously. Crosby writes that delirium has gone. I quote, Grey shadows has left and stopped bothering the patient. It’s from the article, but it seems that there was something different in the patient record.” Scully opened the folder. “I’m sure that it lacks several pages, although they’ve been removed very cautiously. Forensic expert will be able to ascertain what those destroyed pages contained. At least some of them. The traces of the pressure applied by a pen which was used for writing on the previous page had left on the blank first page. According to the visitor log, doctor Crosby was here two days ago. I think, Mulder, that the journal article doesn’t reflect the actual state of affairs. I believe what Crosby told us about Benson is only half the story.”

“In other words, he published fabricated facts. Actually, Benson hasn’t cured. He’s got rid of his delirium, but it has materialized, and, obviously, our doctor couldn’t have predicted such result,” Mulder mused, pulling out of the parking lot by the local office. 

“Mulder, I don’t know what he’s been able to achieve because there is no a scientific explanation to it. But he really got somewhere.”

“I’m on my way to you. The record has to be seized.”

“We’ll need a warrant for it,” Scully lowered her voice and cast a quick glance at Mrs. Travel. She shouldn’t have worried; the older lady was devouring her sandwiches, washing it down with coffee from an enormous mug, and wasn’t paying any attention to the FBI agent, as though she wasn’t even there.

“I’ll call Skinner and get it.”

“Has Benson still not found? Mulder, I can’t even imagine where he could have gone.”

“Yes, he hasn’t. I’m afraid that we aren’t aware about all his capabilities. And we still don’t know why he is killing Santa Clauses.”

“We need a search warrant for the Crosby’s house. I’m sure we’re going to find the lost pages from the record there.”

“We may not get it. The doctor is not the killer. There is no evidence that he is responsible for what happened to Benson. It’s obvious that Benson himself isn’t hiding in his house. I’ll try nevertheless. And as for those pages from the record-- Why do you think he had lit the fire in the fireplace although there was so hot inside?”


	10. Chapter 10

***

Doctor Crosby was sitting in his living room, sorting through the papers; he was throwing some of them into the fireplace while the others avoided the fate to be burnt. However, the last category was much thinner than former; almost all those documents contained the evidence of his mistake. Or rather mistake _ **s**_. He had had to burn them before the cops knocked on his door with a search warrant in their hands. So much for his hopes to save at least a handwritten copy of his research; all the data from the archive he had been bound to destroy already.

Crosby rose cautiously, stepped closer to the window, and pushed the drapes aside.

A police car was parked near his house. One of the officers was talking over his cell phone, while the other one was smoking, occasionally flicking off the cigarette ash through the window to the fresh, virgin snow. They suspected that Brian might come there. And they were waiting for him.

They were afraid he was going to harm the doctor. Now everything hung on those FBI agents’ quickness-- Crosby brought back to memory that photo of the Shadows and winced. He shrugged chilly; he was still cold although there were over 80 degrees Fahrenheit inside. 

Crosby crouched by the fireplace again and looked around the room, cluttered up with books.

That was a five years’ work down the drain. Down the pipe. Out the window. And it was a big question how that whole story would end.

Crosby took a pile of magazines and tested its weight in his hands. To burn them was useless; they could be easily found in any library with little effort. He was sure those FBI agents had done it already. It wouldn’t have been difficult for them to discover his articles, call to the editorial office, then put two and two together, and realize that they hadn’t been told the whole truth about Benson.

The pages from his patient record turned to ashes long time ago. The effort that had taken to get them without watchful Mrs. Travel’s notice--

Benson had told about Santa Claus. It had happened for the first time when he had had his first appointment at the age of 15-- Just then the doctor had diagnosed the teenager with schizophrenia. Benson hadn’t mentioned any murderous intentions, of course. He had told about Grey Shadows and sometimes just repeated constantly, “They don’t love me-- They are telling me that I’m not loved-- Nobody loves me, even him. He doesn’t give me presents. Aunt Jane tells me that is because I’m bad, and Santa doesn’t give presents to bag kids.”

Later Benson had given up his studies, drawing some grey hills for many hours without a break. He had reasoned that if a person wasn’t loved, the Grey Spirits would come for him. And if there were too many of them, they’d take over the world. He had told about the world without love the Earth had turned into.

After the first course of treatment Brian had gone into remission. But then there had been a relapse accompanied by aggression and endless repetition of, ‘they don’t love me, they say that nobody loves me-- They say that they want to take everything for themselves and ask me to help them. He has never given me presents for Christmas. They don’t want for him to exist.’ It had been really hard to sort out those endless pronouns.

The disintegration of thought had made Brian’s speech illogical and confused, but he had stopped drawing the grey hills and had been saying that the Spirits were already there, so he hadn’t care anymore; let them take over the world if they wished so, because he hadn’t needed that world. He had been saying that while the one who had loved everybody had been alive, the Spirits couldn’t have taken over the world, so it had been necessary to kill that person who had loved everybody but him, Brian.

Such peculiar revenge on the humanity--

The doctor grinned bitterly.

Sometimes Brian’s story had varied. He had told that his aunt hadn’t loved him and his uncle hadn’t let him ride a car because he hadn’t loved him too. Once he had said that he had seen in his mind’s eye how his aunt had fallen asleep and never woken up.

And then that article had caught doctor’s eye-- So Crosby had gone to Tibet.

It had been a long and difficult journey.

It had been a dreadful journey.

But possibly, it had been worth it. Mountain oil had had a strong smell of wormwood—He had been warned that he couldn’t have changed the ingredients, but what could have an uneducated Tibetan monk known about pharmacology?

Crosby had wanted it to be his invention. His achievement. Only his and nobody else’s.

The first modification of the drug that supposed to cause a brain rejects delirious ideas to the external environment had been tested on his other patients. But their delirium had had another nature; they had heard only voices and stopped hearing them after the course of treatment. It could have been considered to be a successful result, although Crosby had hardly understood the impact of the mixture he had created on human body. He had been looking forward to getting a patent on his drug as though it had been already in his pocket; he had dreamed of a professorial position and a place at university although he would have had to cure more than dozens of patients at first--

And then all his hopes had fallen to the ground.

‘Exorcism’-- Who could have known how everything would turn out?

For the first time Crosby had treated Brian with the new drug in spring.

All those records-- The doctor pulled out paperclips from his personal diary, torn out several pages, and pushed them into the fire. Red tongues of flames gladly attacked its thin paper, covered with small, hasty writing.

\-- He had got to know that something had gone bad only then Jane Lorelly had passed away in her sleep.

Brian’s dreams leaked into reality too.

***

I’m being looked for. I need to go into hiding. Brian needs to go into hiding. They’ll have to stop looking for me. I’m not going to look for him today. I have the next day for it. If they don’t find me today, maybe they won’t be looking for me tomorrow? They said I wouldn’t be seen. They said that more pills were needed, but I’m completely out of them. I’m hot, very hot. I’ve buried myself in snow to hide and got covered by the fresh snow, but I’m still feeling hot. On the other hand, nobody will find me here. I need to get to the doctor. Doctor Crosby, probably, has more pills, and he’ll give them to me. And if he refuses, I’ll take them myself.

When I visited him the last time, he said that he wouldn’t give me more pills. He said they wouldn’t help me. Doctor Crosby had been wrong a long time ago when he had said that the Grey Shadows weren’t real. I’ve always told that they are real, that they exist.

I’ll find him. He is somewhere near here. I’m not sure where exactly, but he is here. I won’t be looking for him in stores anymore, because they are looking for me there. I’m going to go to the skating-rink; nobody is waiting for Brian there. I must revenge him. They tell me that the world is full of colours because he is alive. And when he dies, people will stop believing in him and, therefore, stop loving each other, and the world will turn grey.

Aunt Jane didn’t believe that I was capable of that.

But I was. I dreamed that she fell asleep forever.

And she didn’t wake up.

***

About 10 p.m. Special Agents of the FBI climbed into their car with the Benson’s record in their possession and breathed a sigh of relief. Mrs. Travel had given them the document with such pained expression as though she had fed to the lions her beloved, only child.

Mulder, who had left the police radio turned on and now kept ringing to McGrave constantly, noticed,

“It seems that Benson has vanished into thin air. All city cops are warned, his photos are everywhere. The place where Benson lived before is empty; it has been searched twice and put under surveillance. He neither showed up at his old school nor at his old acquaintances’. His uncle, ex-husband of Jane Lorelly, indeed lives in California; they divorced two years ago and since then they neither saw each other nor communicated. He didn’t even attend her funeral. He isn’t a bit interested in his sworn nephew. He hasn’t seen him and knows nothing about him. An attempt to track Benson down with help of K-9 teams turned out useless – dogs couldn’t have picked up the trail. Only his abandoned car is found uptown. McGrane said it’s miracle that he had been riding it at all; every single thing that could have freeze had turned to ice,” Mulder said and smirked, “and every single thing that couldn’t have either. I mean gasoline, engine oil, water – everything. Actually, this fact only serves to confirm our theory.”

“What ‘our theory’, Mulder?” Scully was cautiously folding the record into a page protector. “Do we really have some work theory? All facts are incomplete, and we can’t explain them logically.”

“But the facts are present,” Mulder nodded at the file, “I think we need to put the doctor under arrest.”

Scully shook her head negatively.

“At best, he is just a witness in a murder’s case. His amateur treatment by some unverified drugs and the result of this treatment have nothing to do with it. Such violations of the medical ethics fall within the jurisdiction of the AMA. Probably, he will be prosecuted, and chances are his medical license will be revoked. Maybe he will be punished even more severely, but it’s not relevant to the murders of people in red hats.”

“Whose number can increase at any moment. Although it’s hard to tell now. For the next two days the rest of Santa Clauses are beyond the law. The FBI tried to provide this information through other means of information instead of TV. But they announced the show at the skating-rink. The operation is scheduled for tomorrow.” Mulder leaned his head back on the headrest and closed his eyes.

He hated it the most when it seemed that everything was done right, but nothing actually depended on you. Their roles at the skating-rink had been reduced to merely bit players.

“Who will be there? A police team?” Scully asked.

“Yes, and FBI agents either. It’s a joint operation.”

“I’m not sure I get it right. He killed in closed space before, so why is he changing his MO?”

“Do you remember that Santa Claus’s letter? There was a mention of the skating-rink there. As for Benson-- He is eager to finish his task, so if he doesn’t find a victim in a closed space, he will be looking for him in another place. Both his aunt’s and the doctor’s houses are under surveillance. All city gateways are cordoned off. Almost the entire city police are on alert. Crosby’s place was searched with tons of magazines and articles found in the process, but there weren’t pages from the record or any notes among them. But then, as I’ve already said, they found an ash pile into the fireplace. Of course, the doctor claimed that he had just burnt old newspapers. It was decided to keep surveillance. Skinner ordered to grab these documents and bring them to Washington with us.”

Mulder fell silent. 

Scully, who had just put the packed Benson’s record in her purse, kept silent too.

“I think we should drop by that Southern Pearl Street after all,” Mulder was the first who broke the silence. “We need to get acquainted with our source.”

At that moment something rustled in the glove compartment, but they didn’t notice the sound.

“Mulder-- I’ve already told you that it’s a fake address. There is no such apartment building on the map.”

“We have found many unmapped places for the six years together. We’ll drive there, check it out, and make sure that the map is correct. We won’t do any good here. We can’t even do something, except waiting for tomorrow. I recommended McGrave to pay more attention to places with Santa Clauses near Jane Lorelly’s house. It’s possible that Benson might go there. Maybe he will want to make sure for himself that Santa is not hiding there.”

“But where is guaranty that he won’t kill somebody tonight?” Scully peeped into her purse, hoping to find something edible there; she hadn’t had a morsel of food since 8 a.m. today.

Her hope was futile. 

“Last time he made it during the daytime. It seems his condition is changing, and he can’t calculate his moves anymore. He’s getting hot-headed. I’m really curious how has the letter’s author come to the idea of the skating-rink? Tomorrow we’re to join McGrane’s team,” Mulder opened his eyes and straightened. “Skinner’s got permission. Look, the snowfall is starting over. We’d better go.”

Soft, big snowflakes whirled and settled on trees, cars, people’s shoulders, and it seemed that the urban noise had receded, growing softer and duller as though a pre-holiday fuss had been moved aside. The sun had been down already, so street lamps turned on along with garlands which decorated shop windows, bushes, signs--

“So, at the skating-rink, you say,” Scully smiled. “Mulder, can you ice-skate at all?”

Mulder smirked and cast a tentative glance at her. 

“I’ve tried to. I suspect that I’ll be clumsy as a hog on ice, so I’d better stick to the steadier ground. I believe there will be many people with similar problems with motion coordination. What about you?”

“I’m far from a world champion, but I can skate at least 50 yards without falling,” Scully replied. “I assure you that it’s not so hard. And one more thing. Mulder, let’s drop by some deli to grab a bite at first. Then I’ll agree even to look for Santa Claus.”

Suddenly the lid of the glove compartment snapped loudly and sprang back, making both agents jump. 

“Scully, are you sure that the car has been closed?” Mulder inquired softly, scrutinizing a white envelope inside the glove compartment which definitely hadn’t been there just a few hours ago.

“Let’s say I’m completely sure,” Scully said tensely. She understood perfectly well what her partner meant. Six years ago a nondescript cassette on the dashboard had turned out to be a harbinger of the events they weren’t eager to remember even now. Scully caught herself looking around; what if a particular dark-haired English woman would appear out of the blue?--

But she worried for nothing.

The envelope stayed where it was.

Mulder leaned to the right, nearly touching with his elbow Scully’s lap, and looked into the glove compartment closely to make sure there weren’t any wires or other suspicious things there. He didn’t find any.

“I think it’s safe to pick it up,” he said cautiously and reached out for it. Both agents held their breath. Mulder’s fingers slightly brushed the paper, but nothing happened.

It was the most common handwritten envelope without seals and stamps.

As Mulder straightened slowly, holding it in his hands, he turned the light in the car on.

Someone had obviously addressed the letter to them; there was an inscription _“Agents Fox and Dana”_ written by a copy-book hand on the paper. 

“Open up,” Scully moved closer to see the contents of the mysterious package better. “Come on!”

Mulder probed the envelope just in case and, not finding anything suspicious, torn off a slip of paper from its edge.

Inside there was a colorful Christmas card with the text on the other side of it.

_“I keep my hopes up that you’ll be so kind as to honor me with your attention at last. You won’t be starved. Besides, I hope that I’ll be able to answer some of your questions. Santa Claus.”_

“It starts to go beyond all reason,” Scully murmured, scanning the card. “How did it get in there?”

“Probably, elves slipped it into the car,” Mulder supposed, chuckling, as he started the engine. “Let’s go. It’s time to set the record straight at last.”

He didn’t even suspect how close to the truth he was.

***

The little green man seeped through the metal frame of the car and hid among the tangle of wires and tubes. Everything was going to be okay. The verges had grown very thin--

***

A half hour later the agents pulled up the car to the curb on the Southern Pearl Street.

“I’ve told you, Mulder, there is no such house number here,” Scully sighed warily.

They had been standing at the crossroad for at least five minutes, viewing the surroundings. Small buildings clung to each other closely; the building #172 was at the corner of the street, close to next one under #174. Buildings with odd numbers were squeezed on the opposite side of the street. There was no trace of the house with number #172A. The neighbourhood seemed deserted and quiet; snow was falling, and deep, blue shadows crossed blurred, yellow rectangles of light. Street lamps shined very dimly, and it seemed all sounds were drowning in the evening haze. There weren’t any passers-by around.

“Wait a minute,” Mulder got out the car and moved to the house #172 with the envelope in his hands. “We should give a knock. Maybe they know something.”

Scully pursed her lips skeptically. He was dead on her feet and starved; the previous day was very eventful, and even more lied ahead tomorrow, so at that moment she wanted just to reach their hotel, grab something to eat, and fall asleep. Preferably, without any dreams. She had less and less time for all those things; the operation was scheduled at 8 a.m.

Scully pressed her forehead to the cold window glass and closed her eyes.

Drowsiness came in waves, and she wanted nothing but sit there, in the car, without motion at all. At some point it occurred to her that she definitely wouldn’t get to her mother and brother’s on time for Christmas, but it hardly upset her for some reason. She heard as Mulder walked back and forth past the car a few times; heard as the fresh snow squeaked under his steps and hoped that the case would be closed tomorrow, allowing them go home. And everything would be as before.

***

The little green man stuck his head out from under the seat. There was no light in the car, so nobody could see him. His semitransparent wings fluttered, and the golden dust hung in the air. The little man clicked his heels and flitted out right through the roof.

***

Scully got startled by the sudden bang of the door. 

Mulder slid in behind the wheel and tossed the envelope on the dashboard. The golden, invisible dust leaped up, settling on his shoulders and hair, but he didn’t notice it.

“The residents of the house #172 looked at me as though I’d lost my mind. They said there is no such building with letter A in its number around here. I asked if somebody could have sent a letter on their behalf. The answer was no, of course.”

Scully preferred to keep silence. She hadn’t expected anything else but decided against repeating ‘I’ve told you.’

“So, back to the hotel?” Mulder looked at his partner with disappointed expression on his face.

Scully straitened and nodded, but before Mulder had a chance to turn the key in the ignition, she cast the last glance out the window at the dense string of the buildings.

She closed her eyes and then opened them again.

It wasn’t possible.

But it was.

“Mulder, tell me that I’m asleep and have a dream,” Scully said softly.

“Should I pinch you or you prefer more magical method of awakening?” Mulder quipped, but Scully pretended that she didn’t quite catch his words.

“Look.”

Mulder leaned forward.

A brick wall with a porch and a solid wooden door, which fitted in by broadening the usual space in some unexplainable way, suddenly appeared between two dull, plain, peeled building ##172 and 174 in place of a dark, narrow slit with chipped plaster on its sides from just a moment ago. A Christmas garland twined with bands and dusted with snow hung on the door; bright, yellow light came through the small window with fine bars on it. And above all, there was a house number plate just above the window.

172A.


	11. Chapter 11

***

As the agents climbed the stone stairs, Mulder grabbed a brass knocker and rapped it against the door a few times.  
It opened slowly and, obviously, without any interference as though was pushed by some invisible force.

The partners exchanged glances. At the moment they both felt a strong impulse to draw their weapons and enter the premises by the book.

But any possible fears were lulled by pacification, warm, and festive mood, emanating from within the house. A wooden staircase led up, and the light-grey stone walls astride it were covered with a barely visible pattern, distantly reminding of human faces for those with vivid imagination. A spicy aroma of filling dinner was floating, teasing newcomers’ sense of smell, so Mulder took a deep breath involuntary, and Scully swallowed nervously.

“What do you think it all means?” Scully whispered. “Mulder, it’s just not possible--“

“Scully, you’ve always used your common sense and believed only in tangible things that you can see with your own eyes. So, why don’t you believe them now?” Mulder asked in the same hushed tone.

“Because I don’t know who sent us this letter!” Scully even grabbed Mulder’s sleeve to stop him. “There is a big chance that we are stepping in a trap!”

“Oh, come on, Scully. Some trivial serial killer can’t possibly hide in a house which suddenly appeared between two others. This is an X-file to begin with. And the house itself-- you can touch it.” Mulder took her hand and put it on the masonry, applying the pressure with his own hand. The stones were cold, while his fingers were warm and solid. “It’s perfectly real.”

“It doesn’t mean we shouldn’t take some precautions,” Scully softly replied, slowly extracting her hand from his grip.

“Okay.” Mulder drew his weapon. “I hope our host will forgive us for this.”

They both were startled by the sound of a low, rich voice, “Fox, Dana-- I’ve been waiting for you for a long time. Please, come upstairs. You won’t need your weapons here.”

Some light, invisible creature flied upstairs, but the agents detected only the slight motion of air.

****  
The creaking staircase was long; it, actually, appeared to be much longer than they had previously estimated.

Mulder went first, but realizing that Scully had stopped on the lowest step in hesitation, he took her hand again and led the way. While they were ascending, the walls from both sides of the staircase were going down, and both agents involuntary asked themselves about height of this house, because they couldn’t remember either the roof, or second floor--

****

For just a moment Scully imagined that they were going through the blizzard to some unknown lands, and every step of that old wooden staircase created an entirely new world. Out of the corner of her eye she caught whether a glimpse of a Christmas tree with a small angel on the top of it, or a flame of a thick wax candle, or shining sea slick-- She felt blinded by the blizzard and couldn’t see anything in front of her, so she gripped Mulder’s hand tighter, afraid of being left behind, of leaving him alone-- He squeezed her fingers in response.

To walk upstairs had never been so hard for Mulder. It seemed that he was climbing to some inconceivable height but rolled down when he was just a few steps from the top -- Nevertheless, he were stubbornly clambering over and over again to tumble down every single time. However, it seemed he got closer by a step to his destination after his next attempt. And-- he had never actually slid back to the bottom of the stairs.

Because when he stumbled and lost his balance, he was held by her, who, presumably, was being led by him.

She held him. Through the pain and gritted teeth.

So, he squeezed her slim fingers to keep his feet.

****

Eventually, the walls stayed behind.

The agents entered a small room with a huge stone furnace. A flame that was too small for this vessel danced merrily inside. There was a fully served dinner table and a few chairs near the furnace. A Christmas tree in the corner seemed to be growing right through the floor; it was a little curved, even crooked, with coarse, rough needles and without any decorations. Creaking floorboards were covered with colorful woven mats. Some shapeless grey smock-frock and two umbrellas hung on a coat-hanger in the shape of old antlers. 

Various clocks spread all over the walls. The room was lit only by the fire from the furnace, so most of the space drowned in dusk, but the clocks as though radiated light from within. There were hundreds of them: big and small, brand new and age old, cheap and expensive, made of gold, glass, wood, and brass – and all of them ticked and rustled, filling the room with sound. A sandglass with two shining round bulbs hung at the very center of the room, and a weak trickle of the finest sand constantly poured through its narrow neck. The blizzard wailed outside the window with a narrow-meshed wooden grid on it, and the wind threw big snowflakes in the glass with vicious force, making it shudder. There were two small plant pots with some flowers in them, their large buds slightly wavered in a draft. 

The room was deserted.

A conditioned reflex, perfected during their training in Quantico, almost made the partners draw their weapons after all, but gut instincts, honed through the years of field work, told them that they weren’t in any immediate danger.

Mulder and Scully walked to the table hand in hand, cautiously stepping on the creaky boards. The dinner had been served for three persons, but there wasn’t a trace of their host.

“Interesting,” Mulder said softly, “who called us by our names? And why don’t I see either toy bags or elves in caps? It’s a little bit strange, don’t you think?”

Their voices sounded as though they were not in a small room but rather high in the mountains. 

“A little bit? In my opinion, all of this is very strange. There is a blizzard outside, but we came in just moments ago, and the wind had been already hushed. Did you notice that the staircase is impossibly long?” Scully glanced over her shoulder. “But look at it now.”

“Yeah, it felt as though I was climbing to the top of the Empire State Building.” Mulder looked back too.

The staircase was actually quite short – no more than a dozen steps. And the pattern on the walls disappeared.

“I think, we deal with some unusual dimension here.” Mulder pointed at the furnace. “Look, the fire is so tiny, but it’s hot as Sun.”

“These local clocks are not so simple too.” Scully pulled him to the wall with glowing bulbs in a twisted brass frame, covered with a thin layer of patina. Sand poured from the higher vessel to the lower one, flashing with quartzous sparks. “See? The layer of sand in the higher bulb doesn’t abate.”

Mulder looked closely.

“It’s a mystery. In short, an X-file.”

“No, it must be some kind of a trick,” Scully supposed uncertainly. “Sand can’t be endless. This contradicts basic laws of physics.”

“The staircase contradicts them, too. By the way, do you remember that if the bees studied physics and aerodynamics, they wouldn’t be able to fly?” Mulder cautiously picked up the sandglass and turned it over.

“Damn,” he cursed involuntary. The sand kept on pouring, but now it was flowing up.

“Probably, you shouldn’t have done it,” a voice behind them said.

The agents swiveled their heads in the direction of the sound.

A tall, fair-headed, and blue-eyed middle-aged man with groomed sandy beard sat at the table and was looking at them, although he definitely wasn’t there just a moment ago. 

****

He didn’t fit a generally accepted idea of Santa Claus at all.

He wore not a red coat and a hat but rather a light-coloured coarse knit sweater with a peculiar pattern on it, the most ordinary slacks and boots. So, if it wasn’t for the circumstances, he could be easily mistaken for a scientist from some weather station in Alaska.

Mulder slowly put the sandglass back, turning it in its previous position.

“Done what?” he asked softly, wondering why exactly he didn’t wonder at all.

“Never turn clocks over, Fox, especially, if you don’t know what they are,” the man smiled. “You can lock time and space. Yet, I knew that you’d do it.”

“Who are you?” Scully asked. Mulder and she still stood by the wall with a copious collection of clocks on it. They ticked constantly, making it hard to concentrate.

“Me?” The man at the table gave them another smile. “You can call me Santa Claus.”

“I’m guessing that this is not your real appearance,” Mulder half-stated, half-asked.

“You’re right in a sense. This is not even my real name. But right now I fell convenient to look and call myself exactly this way.” The man made an inviting gesture with his hand. “You see here what you’re ready to see. Fox, Dana, I know you’re hungry. Please, sit down. I have quite a scant meal here, but I think you won’t be too upset by that fact.”

Mulder and Scully slowly approached the table.

Mulder still held Scully’s hand, and it seemed that she also forgot about it.

They took heavy wooden chairs.

Scully surreptitiously jabbed her elbow into Mulder’s side and nodded at the window.

While they’d been watching the clock, the window had changed. Now there were two of them instead of one with only one flower pot instead of two as it had been before. The blizzard blew itself out, so night was clear, shining with large stars that, as it seemed, were looking at them right through the windows. Having looked around, the agents realized that the entire room was changing imperceptibly and, apparently, constantly. The coat hanger altered from the antlers to some brass hooks, the umbrellas disappeared, the mats changed colour, and many of the clocks rearranged - only the sandglass stayed at the same place. The chairs and the table got darker and older, it seemed, and the strange round flame in the furnace, which was the only thing that hadn’t changed besides the sandglass, was still dancing merrily, radiating bluish light, and swallowed a next log as if it was alive.

The man, who called himself Santa Claus, got up and moved to the fireplace.

“Scully,” Mulder whispered, not tearing his eyes from the master of the house and still holding his partner’s hand. “We can’t be sure of anything here. Give me the end of your coat’s belt.”

“What for?” Scully whispered in response.

“We’ll tie our belts. I think we should be connected.”

“But why?”

“Who knows-- Everything is changing here. What if we don’t recognize each other later?”

Scully handed the belt to her partner and grabbed his wrist, waiting while he was tying together the ends of their belts.

The man put a Christmas pudding on the table, then turned to the furnace, and placed a covered pot deep into it.

“We need to wait for the bean soup to get ready. I know that you haven’t believed in me for a long time by now,” he smiled. “But you believed when you were just kids. And curiously enough, but each of you believes in miracle in his own way.”

“So, you’re that Father Christmas who rides in the sleigh, pulled by the reindeers, gets into houses through chimneys, and puts gifts into stockings?” Mulder inquired, totally ignoring man’s words about miracle.

“No, I don’t get into houses through chimneys, Fox.” The man picked up a silver teapot that appeared on the table all of a sudden and started to pour amber liquid into their cups. “I do nothing of the sort. I just exist.”

“What for?”

“And what is the point of your existence?” the man smiled again. “However, let’s put these philosophical issues aside.”

“Still I’d like to know what is it all about?” Mulder pulled out both letters from the pocket of his coat and tossed them on the table. “Why did you want to bring us here so insistently?” 

“Because you can help me and vice versa.” The man snapped with his fingers, and the fire flamed twice brighter. The aroma of the bean soup broke through the lid of the pot and reached the table.

“How can you help us?” Scully asked.

“You’re looking for the man who caused the death of many people. You know his identity but you can’t find him.”

“Do you know where he is now? But how?” Mulder was peering at the man, as if trying to guess what he is thinking.

“I know everything, Fox. Or almost everything.”

Scully took a quick look at Mulder, already knowing what he is going to ask.

And she wasn’t disappointed.

“May I ask you--“ Mulder started, but the man quickly interrupted him, “No. This is one of a few questions I don’t have an answer to. I can’t know something that is-- beyond me.”

“She believed in you,” Mulder said bitterly.

“Yes, she believed.”

Scully was first to break the silence that settled after those words.

“You wrote us about the skating-rink. How do you Benson will be there?”

The man twisted a teaspoon in his fingers.

“I don’t know if you’re going to believe me-- But-- You were able to come here, so you’ll be able to believe, too. I must admit I had to break a sweat to make it possible-- Brian hasn’t been alone for a long time. And there is not much left of him already. He still can control himself but rarely, when the Barren Essences step away.” 

“Who?” Mulder asked again.

The man sighed.

“All right, let’s start from the beginning. How do you picture the end of the world as we know it?”

“It’s an interesting theme for discussion,” Mulder remarked. “But what’s that got to do with it?”

“It depends on what you mean by the end of the world, Sir,” Scully shrugged. “It’s accepted that the Earth will die when the Sun turns to a supernova, increasing manyfold and merging the orbits of the nearest planets. But the life on the Earth will cease to exist long before it due to climate change and, perhaps, to the dissipation of the atmosphere. Not to mention that humanity can eliminate itself much earlier.”

“Dana, I’ve never questioned your vast knowledge,” the man sighed. “Your point of view has always been strictly scientific. I’m not as smart as you.”

“There is another version of the world’s end,” Scully added a bit shyly. “The Armageddon, four horsemen of the Apocalypses--“

“All of this is far from the truth, actually,” the man smiled. “The world will come to its end when the Sun doesn’t rise. Then the world will become indifferent, empty, and grey.”

“The Sun can’t fail to rise,” Mulder objected. “It’s impossible.”

“Perhaps. If I’m killed, Christmas won’t come. And the Sun won’t rise. Because sunrise is a miracle, Fox. Don’t look at me like that,” the man flashed them a smile. “There are some things which defy logic.”

“But, Sir-- if I get your identity right, to kill you is impossible,” Scully observed cautiously. “You can’t die like any mortal person.”

“You’re right in some way, Dana,” the man agreed. “I can’t be shot, strangled, or eliminated by any other means, used in a human society. Actually, I’m not a human being. I just look like one. However, I can be surely killed by the lack of faith in me. They have tried to do it many times before, and sometimes not without success-- But not here.”

“Where?” Mulder asked curtly.

“I’m not there anymore, Fox. In other worlds. Now they are on their own, while I’m here. But I don’t want to leave. I like your world. As a matter of fact, my goal is to make sure that people believe in me. And in miracles. Then the Sun goes on rising every day as before. If people stop believing in me, the Barren Essences will seize the world. Human faith is getting weaker as it is, that’s why they slip in – now here, now there-- And the more of them slip in the thinner the world gets. More ghostly. They know that when I’m dead, people will stop believing in me. They also know that if people stop believing, it will kill me just as surely. And the world, too. These are corresponding processes, but whatever happened before, the final is the same. There are so many miracles, aren’t there? Sunrise is a miracle, love is a miracle-- Without faith in miracle there won’t be love – therefore, the world will come to the end. But to kill the one who has power over miracles is much faster. That’s why those who are already here are preying on me. Not for the first time, unfortunately. They slip in through people like Brian. He neither believes nor loves, so the Barren Essences have almost seized him. They can’t find me on their own, but he can. That’s why he is looking for those who look like me.”

“Does he kill them in hope to get rid of the real Santa Claus?” Mulder asked.

“How shall I put it? This is not him who does the killings. He is just looking for victims for them. They kill. The Barren Essences. But you won’t be able to prove it in any your court.”

“Who are they?” Scully had hard time believing in what was going on; all of this seemed to be a weird, semi-real dream to her. It happens sometimes when you’re asleep and can’t understand whether it’s a dream or reality--

The man cast a glance at her, and Scully could bet that he was reading her mind.

“It’s possible because dreams have an impact on reality, Dana.”

“You mean reality has an impact on dreams? Because dreams are results of--“

“There is no need for further explanation, I know what you are trying to say. But according to scientific theories,” the man gave her an indulgent smile, “even a simple observation can change an object. And it changes an observer. Therefore, if we think that reality can change dreams, we have to admit that an opposite impact is also possible. As for the Barren Essences-- They-- I’m not sure I know the best way to put it-- They are Representatives of the Order. People are disturbing the Great Balance of the Universe. That’s why they’d prefer to get rid of all people. They hate chaos, because they are chaos themselves.”

“What do you mean? You just told about Order,” Mulder asked, bewildered.

“I mean the Chaos is the Order indeed, Fox,” the man grinned, “if we get to the root of the matter. The Order is the Primordial Chaos for them. That’s why they slip into the weak ones – in those who carry the Bareness within. They aren’t necessary to break through every time, but they managed to do it in Brain’s case. Such Absolute Bareness, like he has, is possible to heal, but he needs to get rid of the Barren Essences at first. I’m afraid it’s too later though.”

“Is it the result of the treatment that his doctor changed?” Scully asked.

“In general, yes, it is. Changed-- The doctor dared to encroach on the matters he neither comprehended nor could handle.”

“How do they kill? We found out that the blood in victims’ heads had turned to ice,” Scully said.

“And the temperature in the rooms where they were found had dropped drastically,” Mulder added.

“Can’t you surmise it themselves now?” The man got to his feet. “I’m sorry, I need to feed it--“

He got closer to the furnace, picked up a few logs, and started to put them into fire. The flame, that looked more like a bright hot orange, devoured everything it got with a slight rustle. Scully was staring at the fire, unable to understand what seemed strange to her--

“Scully,” Mulder whispered to her, “look.”

He rolled up the sleeve of his coat to show her his watch.

“It has run down. Is the battery dead?” Scully asked, surprised.

“I changed it a couple of weeks ago. According to the time, it stopped at the same moment we stepped over the threshold of this house. I bet that yours stopped too.”

Meanwhile, the man turned the other side of the pot to the fire, rearranged the lid, and got back to the table.

“Do they engulf the life itself?” Mulder inquired. “Engulf energy? So the temperature in the head of a victim drops to absolute zero in a matter of seconds? Are they equally cold?”

“Your guess is almost correct, Fox.” The man moved tea cups and a saucer with peanuts toward the partners. “Please, treat yourselves! I know you’re freezing cold and haven’t eaten since this morning!”

Scully automatically took a few peanuts; Mulder didn’t touch anything at all – they both didn’t feel like eating at the moment. However, the man was looking at them with reproach, so they eventually had a sip of herbal tea and tasted the Christmas pudding, which appeared to be already cut into pieces and laid on their plates.

“If they do the killings, why Brian stabs his victims into the hearts?” Scully suddenly recalled.

“His human nature impels him to do so. Fortunately, he complies with it, otherwise the Barren Essences had possessed the victims, so they would have become the Barren Essences themselves, and all of this would have been over much faster. The Barren Essences can’t prevent him from doing so; they don’t have power over it.”

“But how can we stop them?” Mulder raised his voice. “They’ll never find you, so Brian will be killing forever--“

“They’ll find me, and you won’t be able to stop them. Brian is barely a human anymore. Soon you won’t be able to stop him either. Then he will lead them here. If he came alone, he wouldn’t be able to kill me, but they will come with him. And it will be over.”

“Why?” Scully asked. “Can’t you just leave?”

“No, I can’t.” The man looked away from them. “You can’t run from yourself. This is one-of-a-kind place. It can be entered from almost everywhere. It is there and everywhere at the same time if you understand what I mean. I can’t leave it otherwise all of these will stop working,” he involuntary nodded at the clocks on the walls.

“But why don’t arrange our meeting in Washington? If it’s possible to get in any place from here?” Mulder asked, perplexed.

“You weren’t ready to believe me back then,” the man explained patiently. “You need to stop Brian or they will kill me and it will be over then. The Barren Essences is getting hungrier, craving more human lives. They are pushing him forward. So far he has been killing only those who have been targeted by his altered but still human consciousness. Soon that consciousness will fell silent for good, and he will be able to find me. In this case, everybody who will be in his way will die. I can predict future in a way. That’s how I know about a police operation at the skating-rink along with the absence of other masquers in the city, and his final destination--“

“Hold on,” Scully interrupted him, “but when you sent us that letter, the operation hadn’t been planned yet! The police decided to make an ambush after they got this information!”

“It’s a time paradox, Scully,” Mulder said softly and cast a look at the clocks on the wall. “I think I got it. I formed a time circle when I turned that sand glass over, and you said you knew that I would do it. A time-loop.”

The man smiled and nodded imperceptibly.

“How can we stop Benson? If, how you say, he is barely human anymore. I doubt whether those who you call the Barren Essences will leave him alone when he is apprehended and put behind bars.”

The man looked away.

“You can’t advise it,” Mulder surmised. “It’s against your nature. You want us to clean this mess for you.”

His voice grew angrier, and Scully grabbed his sleeve to prevent him from further tossing of accusations.

“What is it all about?” she whispered, but Mulder pulled the sleeve out of her grip.

“He means, Scully, that we must kill him! But he can’t give us such advice directly. Nevertheless, we will have to do hunter’s work and kill a rabid wolf.”

“You’re sorely mistaken, Fox. I do want you to find another way,” the man replied bitterly, “I don’t want him killed. Once he was a sweet kid, although he thought that he wasn’t loved. He didn’t love himself and therefore he let the Bareness into his soul. I remember every single kid in the world, you know. Absolutely everybody, Fox. All of you are kids for me. I really hope that you will think of some alternative. Because despite everything you said you indeed believe me, otherwise you’d never get in here. Go to the skating-rink tomorrow. Stop him. Or sunrise won’t come. I have nothing more to say.”

Mulder pushed his chair aside and got to his feet, and Scully followed suit.

“Something is clearer now, of course,” Mulder admitted, noticing that the room had changed again – it seemed to get wider, but the ceiling had lowered, the number of windows had returned from two to one, although huge one, again, the chairs now got armrests which had been absent before, and the quantity of cups on the table had grown exponentially. “But you turned out to be useless when it came to our main problem. I mean we still don’t know how to stop him.”

“I’m sure you will know what to do when time comes,” the man answered. “Just remember that if he has time to become something not human, you won’t be able to stop him. I will give as good as one gets. The balance has to remain intact. And I have power over miracles. Everybody have their own dreams and wishes, don’t they? I’m not capable of doing something impossible, but I do can push the scale to the side where the possibility of achievement some possible things will grow-- You may just think about your dreams, and it’s enough for me.”

Mulder shook his head.

“If it’s possible for my dreams to come true, sooner or later I’ll turn them into reality myself. Otherwise -- Anyway, you refused to answer that only question I’d like to know answer to.”

“What about you, Dana?” The man rose from the table and walked to the furnace once more to feed his weird fire.

“Mulder,” Scully whispered, “look. The fire. Don’t you notice that?”

“What exactly?”

Scully don’t have time to explain herself.

“Dana, you didn’t answer me.” The man straightened, and the agents saw that he wore not the coarse knit sweater but some strange shapeless semitransparent garment now. The darkness curled in its folds, sparkling with something akin to stars.

“I don’t want to push anything,” Scully said cautiously. “There is no need to upset the balance. If something is destined to happen, it will happen. And vice versa.”

“You never ask anything from those who can give it to you, don’t you?” the man smiled. Scully seemed to hear approval in the tone of his voice.

“You often have to pay for things you got without any trouble for ages,” Mulder added. “I think we’ll be better off without such doubtful gratitude.”

“Why do you believe that the end of the world comes sooner than it happens, Dana?” the man asked, looking her straight in the eyes.

Scully blushed; it’s none too nice when somebody reads your heart.

“It doesn’t matter,” came her hasty reply. “If it doesn’t happen-- Let it rather not happen at all than because someone-- made it happen.”

Mulder searched her face and noticed that she looked flushed. But Scully didn’t take her eyes off their mysterious host, who now resembled anybody but not that Father Christmas, giving presents to kids.

“Well-- I thought as much.” The man lifted the lid of the pot. “The bean soup has steamed away almost completely; however, I give you a Christmas gift. And it’s not something you get without trouble, Fox. It’s more like redemption. After all, you didn’t ask for it – it’s my decision to reward you. With something you believe in. Just won’t confuse it--“

Mulder suddenly felt that his pockets grew heavier.

“Dana, Fox.” The man stepped closer to them, and his clothes started crawling away like warm mist, “I believe that you will succeed.”

Some golden-green creature flied from the folds of his misty robe, but the agents didn’t have enough time to discern it. As they approached the staircase, Mulder grabbed Scully’s hand, being afraid of losing her in the mist. Scully wanted to put the peanut, she still held in her hand, in her pocket but suddenly felt that something was fluttering there. She looked down and unclenched her fist.

There was a white butterfly on her hand instead of the peanut. It flied up and vanished into thin air.

“The salvation is in sleep,” they heard before the mist closed in and took them up.

****

The Keeper strained his ears.

“It seems all of us are late. He is not a human anymore. They’re running out of time. And he will come here not alone.”

The little green man fluttered out from behind the sandglass and began to shake his head and jolt his wings. The golden dusk poured down the floor.

“Do you think we still have a chance?”

The Keeper turned to a stone hearth in the depth of a cave. The snowstorm howled outside, but it was perfectly normal for that place on the top, in the attic of the world. High snowdrifts towered by the entrance, the floor was covered with ice debris, and only three things in that strange place looked warm and alive: a sandglass in the greenish brass frame, repeatedly reflecting in the ice-covered walls, the fire in the hearth, and God only knows how ended up there roses in an old pot.

The Keeper set straight a stone bowl, being always filled with some boiling mass, spreading the spicy aroma around. He picked up a few logs from the floor and put them into the fire. That boiling broth smelled of wormwood and mountain oil. Mountain oil is a remarkable, wonderful thing. It had had to work out, but it had failed and the time for correction of mistakes was running short--

\-- The grey stone walls protected securely the round yellow flame and miniscule balls, orbiting it in their eternal movement.

Protected so far.

And there was sand in the sandglass yet.


	12. Chapter 12

***

Her head was spinning - due to fatigue as it seemed. At first Mulder thought that he had just dozed off in the car. He cast a look to his right and saw Scully. She sat in the passenger seat with her head on the headrest, her eyes closed. Suddenly he realized that he had been still holding her hand.

“Scully,” he called.

Her eyes fluttered open.

“Mulder? Where--“ She took a quick look around and then cast a glance at her hand for some reason. “I must have dozed off while you were looking for that house,” she said with a thoughtful expression.

“Were you gonna ask where is the Keeper? We were there, Scully. We were there just a moment ago! The crazy staircase, the changing room, the stone furnace, the clocks on the wall – hundreds of them! You don't mean to say you don’t remember it!”

“It couldn’t have happened, Mulder,” Scully said dubiously. “Did you see the same dream? Silverware on the table, the bean soup in the pot, the flowers on the windowsill? Tea and the Christmas pudding? The blizzard outside the window?”

“Yeah, exactly. And-- he told us about Benson. And about the Barren Essences, too. He also called us by our names. He asked us to stop him.”

“We dreamed all of this,” but she didn’t sound confident at all.

“Are you trying to say we saw the same dream simultaneously? It doesn’t make sense. We _**were**_ there. He knew that Benson would come to the skating-rink because he had told us about it himself. I turned the sandglass over! Why don’t you believe?”

“Mulder, this is an illusion. We must have been too tired, hungry, and really wanted to find that Santa, so we saw similar dreams--“

“Down to the smallest detail? This is BS, Scully. We simply were there. Together.”

“Our watches shows that you got out of the car just five minutes ago, Mulder,” Scully shook her head.

“We were in a place where time doesn’t exist, Scully. Our watches weren’t going while we were there. That place has its own time, remember?”

Mulder wanted to remind Scully about wishes the Keeper had asked them for but changed his mind for some reason. Instead he said softly,

“Look.”

Their belts were tied together by a sailor’s knot.

Having remembered the man’s words, Mulder stuck his hands in his pockets. He found parti-coloured knitted socks there; they looked just like those stockings that people hang on mantels on Christmas Eve.

Scully turned her eyes to Mulder, and he realized that she still hadn’t believed. So, he carefully opened her right hand.

Her palm was smudged with white pollen, usually left by a butterfly after you held it in your hand. 

****

They grabbed a bite in some 24-hour deli, barely speaking in the process, and returned to the hotel deep into the night. Scully mutely tried to rub off the white dust from her fingers with a tissue, a faraway expression on her face.

As Mulder shut down the engine, he said softly,

“You’ve never believed me. Similar dreams just don’t happen, Scully.”

“You know, it’s easier for me to believe in the same dream-- Dreams reflect reality; they are product of central processing of the information that we get during the day--”

“Yeah, I know the basics,” Mulder interjected. “But what about our belts? Or that pollen? And what do you tell about this?

He pulled the knitted sock out of his pocket.

“Mulder-- You could tie them while sleeping-- People known to walk on roofs in their sleep. This is--“ She looked down at her fingers. “It must be some pretty ordinary dust, Mulder.”

Scully warily prodded the sock with her finger.

“I don’t know how it got there, but this is the most ordinary sock, so it hardly proves anything.”

“Should I have taken along the fire from the furnace to make you believe? Or maybe drag the Keeper by his robe? Didn’t you hold me on the stairs, Scully?! So, why do you let me down now?”

Scully bit her lip and said nothing, bringing back to memory her thoughts at that moment when the Keeper she had had a dream about (or had it been reality, after all?”) had asked her about her dreams and wishes.

Well, whether he was real or not, the possibility of the forthcoming end of the world is definitely much higher than--

“Mulder-- You know I’ve never rejected things if they have been supported by evidence. Things I can see with my own eyes. But now we don’t have any evidence, and I’m not certain I saw anything at all.”

Mulder kept silent, musing that he shouldn’t have lost his temper with her.

“So, tell me-- Do you have a-- wish? The one he could fulfil?” he asked after a pause.

“I can’t tell you,” Scully replied, avoiding looking him in the eyes and folding the tissue carefully. “If I do, it won’t come true. Let’s go. Now all we need is a good night sleep, because we have a meeting with McGrain at 8 a.m.”

“Yes, of course.” Mulder climbed out of the car, took their carry-on, and followed his partner inside.

They got their rooms without any delay and ruffle. 

As the partners stopped on the thresholds of their rooms, they exchanged lingering glances. 

An awkward silence hung in the mid-air between them.

“Good night, Mulder,” Scully finally said in a low voice.

“Good night,” Mulder echoed, bringing back to memory her flushed face; had he dreamed it? Or not? He began to doubt it now, too.

He stepped into his room and was already fast asleep within ten minutes, immerging in a deep but uneasy sleep.

Only so often he hasn’t suffered from insomnia during their investigations.

****

They are in some park; snow is falling around, and an unsteady, weightless silence that occurs only during snowfalls has settled in. The snow covers their shoulders, hair, faces and instantly thaws because of their hot cheeks and lips, leaving behind itself only sparkling drops of water.

“Do you have a wish?” Fox asks.

“Of course,” Dana answers in a low voice.

“What do you dream about?”

“I can’t tell you,” Scully chuckles. “If I do, it won’t come true.”

“What if I’ll try to guess it?” he asks, setting his hands on her shoulders and pulling her closer to him.

“You won’t be able to,” Dropping her eyes, Scully puts some distance between them and then looks up again, “at least because I don’t know it clearly myself.”

Their eyes lock together.

It is one of those moments when you don’t know whether this thing you’re contemplating right now exist between you or it has always been just a wistful thinking on your part. So, you move forward with tiny steps-- One step forward, two steps backward-- Because if you’re mistaken, you’re going to lose even that you have now.

You’re standing on the brink of an abyss with swirling mist below, so you can’t see the bottom of this pit; you don’t know for sure whether there is a bridge across it which will help you to get to the other side after you take a step--

The abyss chills you to the bones. 

But unknown scares you even more.

\-- A step. Another one. Toward each other. Across the narrow bridge over the abyss.

To fell from it is so easy.

“I don’t know,” she whispers.

“I’ll try,” he says, leaning closer. “I’ll try--“

Mulder cautiously touches her cheek with his lips, feeling cold snowflakes on her hot skin, and then covers her mouth with his; it’s so soft, slightly chapped from the frost. He seems he hears her heartbeat and then realizes that he senses these beating with his palm, which lies dangerously close to her breast, covered by light white silk. He suddenly freezes with fear that she’s going to hit him in his face again, leaving him with a bruise on his cheekbone, but the next instant Scully’s arms slips around his shoulders, and they both are falling into the whirling of the blizzard with only one single thought in their heads – not to loosen their grip on each other.

The Bareness is retreating.

And they both are struck by an entrancing conviction that it’s not so scaring to fall into that abyss if they are falling there together.

His lips are like fire, his hands are roving over her body in a greedy and almost shameless fashion, squeezing her tightly and actually crushing to his chest. His fingers crawl under the silk of her blouse, and only two layers of the thinnest cloth separates them now-- Dana’s desperation matches his own when she presses herself to his torso, as if trying to become a part of him. She isn’t conscious of the cold around them anymore – only the feverish heat of their bodies and feeling of Mulder’s lips as they slides over her cheek, her neck, her collarbone, down to her furiously throbbing heart. She catches her breath, and her own lips moves, forming his name,

“Fox--“

****

Doctor Crosby stood by the window and looked through it at the cops. He didn’t want to eat or sleep, although the clock on the mantel showed 01:15 a.m. For the last several hours he did nothing but wandered through the house and looked out the window - at the garden, falling snow, and the police guard nearby. The doctor tried to calm by sitting in a chair with a book but couldn’t either sit or read; even holding that book was a real problem, because his hands were shaking and the lines got rather fuzzy as if blurred by water.

It seemed to him that every gust of the wind outside roared like a tornado.

Every crackle of a branch against the window made him wince, and sticky cold sweat pearled on his forehead and spine.

Habitual sounds as though got distorted by a monstrous prism of that frosty night.

\-- A second car had just driven up – obviously, it was the next shift of his guardians. A swinging lantern over the threshold cast dim, unsteady light, so silhouettes of cars and passersby were hardly discernible.

There was stuffy and dark in the room; the only light came from embers in the fireplace, which hadn’t gotten cold yet, so they flared up with crimson light occasionally.

The doctor hadn’t try to sort out his things after the police search, so the room was a mess: the books had been pulled off from the bookshelves, the furniture moved from its specific places, armchairs slipcovers thrown to the floor-- 

\-- The clock was ticking, but except that complete silence reigned over the house. The doctor heard every single sound as though a ship’s bell was striking a resonant, heavy rhythm. Every beat echoed in his head with painful sound, his chest tightened as if some cold hand squeezed his ribs, and it seemed that the air had become heavy and thick like taut turbid mercury, so he couldn’t draw a deep breath--

Drip.

The doctor took his head in his hands, squirming on the floor by the couch.

Drip.

That was a weird resonant echo, which takes place only in empty, forsaken houses and never in inhabited ones--

Drip. That was a vibrant, metallic sound, which awakened deep-buried primitive instincts that each of us has gotten from their remote ancestors.

Crosby felt goose bumps on his arms and every single hair on his head bristled. 

_No. This is ridiculous. He can be-_ -

Again, that sound - humid, plangent. Lingering--

The doctor dropped his hands on his laps. 

\-- It’s just water, leaking from the tap in the kitchen sink. They even hadn’t turn off the faucet before they leaved.

Not bothering to turn the light on, he stumbled to the hall, running against the chairs and tripping over the books on his way. Crosby checked the thermometer; the temperature was 82.4 degrees Fahrenheit, but he still felt chilly. The doctor set a thermostat at 86 although he realized that it wasn’t going to help. He couldn’t have been getting warm for a few days by now – since that moment when he had learnt about those murders. As if the cold that reigned in Benson’s soul had passed on him somehow. Crosby hadn’t been sleeping for several days, fearing that Benson’s dreams – monstrous, unreal dreams, filled with the Grey Creatures of Barren lands he had told about – would force entrance into his head, so now he was nearly catatonic from insomnia and apprehension. He had stopped treating Benson with those pills in the last month, but he still had a handful of them in his safe. However, it seemed his condition had only worsened since then.

The doctor didn’t understand where he had made a mistake.

But he remembered words of a strange old man in a shapeless long loose frock who he had found in the mountains and then persuaded to tell about exorcism, and teach him that skill--

“You think you can exercise spirits-- But keep it in your mind – one day they would be able to break through.”

Crosby hadn’t believed in materialization; he had just wanted to exercise demons from thoughts of his patients. But he had been sorely mistaken.

The old man hadn’t been eager to reveal his secrets, but Crosby had been persuading him of his heavenly thoughts, back then sincerely believing in his own willingness to help people. 

“Beware of the Barren Essences. They slip into souls, heads, eyes, ears, hearts, hide into words, burn into memory like acid-- They need bareness and cold, cold and bareness--Sometimes people can hear them. These demons must not be released.”

Crosby had written that warning off as mere words of a religious fanatic.

As it turned out, he shouldn’t have disregarded it so carelessly.

\-- There was a small picture of summer scenery on the wall near the power board. Now that bright sun and lush green grass appeared to be pretentiously artificial. The doctor cautiously took the picture down from a nail and put aside a wooden panel. It seemed that every sound intensified tenfold in that impossible stillness, so even falling of a sheet of paper produced an impression of the roar of Niagara Falls. 

There was a metal door of the small safe behind the panel. The cops hadn’t found it, so the doctor had preferred to keep silence about its existence.

Crosby had been able to key in the right combination of numbers only at the third attempt, his hands were shaking so badly. The silence was pressing upon him, blinding, and deafening; he imagined that it stood behind his back, ready to attack and engulf him--

Suddenly he heard a soft squeak.

The doctor swirled his head in the direction of the sound and blanched as though he saw a ghost.

However, nobody was there; there was only a tub with a semi-withered ornamental lemon tree. That squeak was heard again, but this time Crosby realized that the sound was let out by the lantern outside. Dull yellowish spots were jumping on the floor and the walls, and the tree in the tub cast an ugly, ridiculous shadow in the pale moonlight.

His legs weak with overwhelming relief, the doctor slipped down the wall, shivering violently.

_He won’t hurt me. He can’t do it, because of the police patrol nearby. He won’t be able to come in. He won’t._

That sudden weakness was so powerful that he didn’t have enough strength to get up and take a seat, so he stayed on the floor, stretching his long thin legs and leaning on the wall with eyes closed. His right hand convulsively gripped a gun that he had taken out from the safe.

_He said it was my fault-- He said he didn’t want for me to exist. He said he saw me dead in his dreams--_

He will come.

He will come to him, too.

Crosby was able to rise not less than a quarter of an hour later. He heard the sound of the patrol car when the cops came off duty, a rhythmic squeak of the lantern, and crackling of the cooling embers in the fireplace, but all of this seemed to be far away, as though it was happening not with him. The gun made him a little bit braver, so the doctor walked to the window again.

The snow was falling, forming real snowdrifts in the garden. The last similar snowfall had been a long time ago. The driveway had been covered with snow, and Crosby thought automatically that he would have to shovel it tomorrow. Contemplation of snowfalls always has pacified him, so he realized that something’s wrong just a little too late. It seemed he lost sight of reality, watching swirling of large light flakes.

However, when he heard an abrupt low shriek from the direction of the police car, he became suddenly aware of his surroundings. At first, he thought that he had misheard, because the silence had surrounded him again, and now his ear didn’t catch even the squeak of the lantern. The doctor was looking into the darkness until his eyes started to hurt, but it was futile; he couldn’t see anything because of the lantern had turned off. Crosby casually thought that it was odd; he had changed a bulb just a couple of weeks ago.

When the blizzard threw a handful of snow into the window, the doctor stepped back as though he was hit into his chest. The snow fell down, and Crosby stared right into the insane ice-blue eyes, burning like embers on the white face. Somebody’s cold fingers touched his hair, sliding down to his temples, his neck, and then a cold hand squeezed his heart so strongly that it couldn’t take any beats anymore. Only one thought run through his head before his consciousness died away for good.

“He has come.”

He had time to make only one single shot.

\-- The semi-withered lemon tree got covered with frost and its frozen leaves, broken under its own weight, fell to the ground with icy tinkling.

***  
Albany,   
The 24th of December, 1999

That was a dream. Just a dream that was interrupted bу Mulder’s electronic alarm clock, clearly heard through the wall.

Just a dream.

Maybe if she repeated those words like a mantra for several times, it would help her to open her eyes, climb out of bed, and collect her thoughts. That crazy last night and the odd hallucination about the Keeper were to blame for it. Nothing else. She also should have reminded her inner voice, which was saying over and over again that a similar dream couldn’t be shared by two people, that there was no evidence of the contrary.

Yes. As always. They hadn’t gotten any reliable explanation--

Scully’s eyes fluttered open.

She looked around and saw a floor, white walls, a wooden nightstand by the bed, and a window with blinds on it. All of this was real; she could touch it, run her palm over its surfaces and sense roughness of plaster, warm of wood, cold of smooth glass, but couldn’t say the same about her night vision. She couldn’t make sure that it had been real, too--

How was it possible to distinguish a dream from reality?

She trusted her vision, but now she couldn’t be sure that last night with Santa Claus hadn’t been just a work of her imagination.

And then that other dream-- Wonderfully, but it was equally clear and vivid. 

Her face must have been flushed because of stuffiness in her room. And her lips, too. That just couldn’t be true. There was only work in her reality; if a person was so obsessed with their job, nothing could compete with it.

There was no need to even try.

****

It was necessary to take deep breaths.

Breath in, breath out. 

Once again.

And again.

Mulder closed his eyes.

However, the dream didn’t come back to him – it had dissipated, disappeared behind mantle of snow, leaving behind itself only warmth in his palms. And a heartbeat near his lips. 

Breath in, breath out.

Once again.

He made a breath so deep that his lungs started to hurt.

Such dreams just don’t happen, do they, Agent Mulder? Such painfully precise and real dreams. But such reality is equally impossible. And if all of this is true after all-- Then this reality can’t come true or she will go for him even farther than she goes now. Over ice, into the hell, to abyss without looking back. He won’t allow her to share his doom. 

So, let these dreams remain dreams.

Mulder wasn’t sure he had the guts for it, though.

\-- As if having agreed with him on it, reality asserted itself insistently by a sharp trill of the alarm clock and cold air from the slightly opened window.

****

A ringing phone established the triumph of reality once and for all.

Welcome back down to earth from the clouds.

“Agent Mulder,” Mulder said, pressing the phone to his ear and dressing hurriedly.

“Agent Mulder, something-- incomprehensible happened,” odd awkwardness was clearly heard in McGrain’s voice.

“What exactly?”

“I don’t know how to explain it properly-- It’s just plain spooky,” McGrain eventually gave up even an attempt of explanation. “Can you and Agent Scully come to the doctor Crosby’s house?”

“When?” Mulder asked quickly.

“The faster the better.”


	13. Chapter 13

****

During the ride Scully was uncharacteristically quiet, biting her lips from time to time. Mulder tried to watch the traffic while driving, but at some moment, when the silence got really awkward, he decided to ask, “How do you think it was a dream shared by two?”

Scully winced and shot him an odd look.

“One thing in Keeper’s story is still unclear for me whether we dreamed him or not,” Mulder continued.

“What thing?” Scully asked, relaxing visibly.

“What is happening with Benson? Why isn’t he a human anymore? What did the Keeper mean? Why we may not have time to stop him?

“I don’t know, Mulder. But you shouldn’t consider that dream as a guide for catching the perpetrator.”

“Why not? It’s widely known that people often have the light bulb moments in their dreams.”

“Yes, but I think it’s not the case here.” It seemed Scully was musing over something. “Our brain is capable of making a decision as a result of processing of information, but--“

“But what?” Mulder turned right at the crossroad; the doctor’s house was within five quarters now. “How is this case different from any others? I don’t see that. We should accept this decision to understand whether it is right one or not--“

****

The partners realized what had happened as soon as they approached the place. There were several police cruisers scattered along the curb near doctor’s house, and cops swamped the neighborhood like ants. The snow on the driveway had been, obviously, trampled down by their boots, and the dull lantern over the threshold didn’t shine.

A tall figure moved away from the group of cops and headed for the agents’ Ford parked on the opposite side of the street.

“Doctor Crosby died last night,” McGrain said instead of greeting. He looked tired, his eyes were red as though he had spent the whole night without batting an eyelid.

“Died?” Scully echoed. “How? A heart attack?”

“No. I don’t know, but I believe we deal with a murder here. You’d better see it for yourselves. But there is more to come. The guys who were surveilling the house got hurt. They were rushed to the hospital, but I’m not sure whether they gonna made it--“ McGrain signed heavily, and it became clear that the chances were very slim.

Mulder and Scully exchanged glances. 

“What happened to them?” Scully didn’t have a slightest idea how it was possible for a person to survive with ice in the scull, so she envisioned truly frightening pictures.

“They’ve got severe frostbites,” McGrain replied. “I don’t have a clue how it could happen. Spooky, as I already told you. Their car is like an ice block. They hadn’t radioed to the station in due time, so another cruiser was sent to check on them. Well, they found their colleagues like that--We had a difficult time extracting them from there. As we learnt later, they had gotten horrendous freeze burns and hypothermia. They were still alive back then, but I know nothing about their current condition. And there is more--”

“What happened to the doctor?” Mulder interjected.

“The doctor is dead,” McGrain said as he gave them an odd look, “Agent Mulder-- Agent Scully-- I don’t know what it is, and-- anyway, if you offer any explanation, I’ll be more than happy to hear it. Whatever explanation. Let’s go.”

****

A truly arctic cold reigned inside; there was much warmer outside, actually. Snowdrifts in the living room had buried under themselves the furniture and the books, half-covered the fireplace, and hidden knickknacks on the mantel.

The agents found the body of doctor Crosby in the hall oddly frozen in a particular stance. 

Scully turned the collar of her coat up against the cold air that burnt her face and crouched by the body. Mulder followed suit.

To determine the cause of death wasn’t too difficult.

“Oh my God, he has turned to an ice block,” Scully exclaimed in amazement, passing her hand over the ice-covered clothes, arms, and face of the doctor. A thin layer of frost lied on his eyelashes, while his hair turned white and so brittle that it broke under the slightest touch. His fingers that were literally covered with ice hold a gun in its iron grip.

“Exactly,” McGrain nodded. “And I’d really like to know how it’s possible. Get a look at what we found in the safe,” he handed Scully a small vial with smooth greenish pills inside. “There are two more in there. Should I send it to the lab? And another thing--“

Scully pulled a tight-fitted cork from the vial.

A sharp odor of wormwood pervaded the room immediately.

The same smell was emitting from a huge glass bottle half-filled with some heavy green oily liquid. McGrain had just pulled it out from the safe and now shook his head dubiously.

**** 

The body was transported to the lab of the local FBI office along with the pills and the suspicious liquid.

Time passed by, and soon the cops in Santa Claus’s costume were due to step on the ice of the skating-rink, as it had been planned earlier.

During the ride to the place of the ambush McGrain told the partners that only one shot had been made from the gun found in doctor’s house. 

“We haven’t located the bullet yet,” he added with a thoughtful expression. “Chances are the doc wounded him. So, are you’re saying he is freezing them?”

Mulder had to tell him a revised version of the events, leaving out a story of the Keeper and keeping only the part concerned Benson directly.

“So, is this what you usually do?” McGrain shook his head. “It’s a wonder you haven’t yet gone nuts with such work--“

“Many of my colleagues think that I lost it a long time ago,” Mulder smiled ruefully.

McGrain said nothing.

****

Various tents with skates for rent, hot beverages, and snacks started appearing around the rink at the break of dawn. The night wind had dropped, the snowfall also stopped, and in spite of the frosty air that burnt lungs, people anticipated a wonderful day; they were shoveling the ice from the snow that had fallen during the night, and decorated trees, benches, and snow sculptures with Christmas garlands. Nobody actually paid any attention to the cops, searching every single tent.

McGrain looked around the rink.

“We have eight cops to disguise us Santa Claus here. They are in the different ends of the rink with other ununiformed cops nearby. The four of them are situated on the ice, and the other four - along the perimeter of the place. The cops are wearing kevlar vests, of course, but I’m afraid that’s to no avail – they don’t exactly help to keep warm. I wish we knew when Benson is gonna make his appearance--“

“I think we won’t have to be waiting for a long time,” Mulder said softly, watching as the cops were taking their assumed positions. “Most importantly, they must not let him get too close.”

“Well, he is carrying that knife not for sharpening pencils, obviously,” McGrain nodded.

“He uses cold, not a knife for killings. You saw it yourself,” Mulder reminded him.

“Yes, I did. But there is a big difference between seeing and believing your own eyes-- I have an order to shoot to kill when he appears. If he’ll leave us no choice.”

Mulder kept silent.

McGrain heaved a sign, and a white cloud of his breath rose up in the cold air. His people were nervous; they hadn’t really bought the story about the killer who turns his victims into ice. Those newly-made Santa Clauses were walking around the rink, grimly waiting for the main inflow of people, being not too eager to have deal with challenging authenticity of their beards and attempts to know how much luck that particular family would get in the New Year.

Mulder and Scully were slowly walking along the rink, staring at the face of every man they’d been meeting on their way.

“The salvation is in sleep-- What do you think that means, Scully?” Mulder asked with a thoughtful expression. “When can sleep save somebody?”

“It can ease pain, for example,” Scully replied. “Or fatigue. Or fear. There is a kind of therapeutical sleep, not mention such very common for medicine things like anaesthesia and induced coma. But I don’t know how it can help us to solve Benson’s problem.”

“If he fell asleep, what will happen to his delirium?”

“Hard to say. What he has isn’t even a typical kind of delirium. Anyway, if they kill him, he will be having hard time falling asleep.”

“They won’t be able to do it, Scully. Do you remember what the Keeper said? To tell the truth, I don’t have a slightest idea how to stop Benson. It’s impossible to kill him – at least the doctor failed. To stop and detain him is also impossible, and further delay is fraught with turning more and more people into exhibits of an ice-figure museum. Nevertheless, I think we don’t have to-- kill him. It won’t be right.”

Taking off his gloves, Mulder leaned and grabbed a handful of snow. He made a heavy snowball and weighted it in his hand.

“If we assume that the Keeper is right, the creatures he called the Barren Essences had slipped into our world through Benson’s altered consciousness. So, if he loses his consciousness and is out cold for a while, not pun intended, the door will close up, won’t it?”

Scully shook her head.

“Maybe. But in this case we need to make sure he’ll get rid of the Bareness within himself. How to do it is an entirely different question.”

“So, you do believe, after all, don’t you? Mulder smiled.

Scully said nothing.

Then Mulder put the slightly melted snowball into her hand and add,

“I’m gonna buy us some hot coffee and snacks. The hunger is becoming a bad tradition of this case.”

Scully just nodded. The snowball was solid and cold, reminding her of a frozen heart of the man who wasn’t actually a man anymore. 

****

I need to wait. All of them aren’t real. I know it. Before I couldn’t see it right away, but now I can. They’re waiting for Brian, they want for Brian to never exist. I thought that he would come along with others, but he isn’t here. The day falls asleep soon, and all of them go away. I need to find him, but I don’t know where to look. I need to find the door. They’ve gotten very cold, but I’m still hot. The pills don’t help me. I took other pills from the doctor. He didn’t believe me, but they touched him, and now he believes. Those two fell asleep, because if they didn’t, they wouldn’t have let me see the doctor, while I had to show him that I was right all along. They’re whirling around me, they’re hungry again. They can’t wait any more until I find him. Now they’re ready to freeze anybody who comes across, but I’m talking them that they mustn’t do it yet. If they do it, the police will stop me. Or rather try. They’re saying I need to find those who were at his home. They’ll lead me to him. They’re somewhere here, too. I’ll take their thoughts and learn how to find the door. Let them take the lives of those two, I don’t care. I need to get there. It hurts to breath. Sometimes, when I forget that I have to draw a breath and don’t do it, the pain is gone. My hands have turned white and now they’re pouring snow. I’m gonna stay here. The snow will hide me. I’m hot-- Now only my head feels hot.

****

By the evening McGrain had lost his temper.

There were many people on the rink, including kids, and all of them were having fun, stepping of the ice in skates and without them, and taking a great pleasure in making photos with Santa Clauses who weren’t too happy with it but realized that their resistance was futile. There weren’t any attempted murders as well as reporting of appearance of any suspicious individuals nearby. The group didn’t hear about new killings either, and this circumstance brought slight comfort to McGrain. However, he realized that the sun goes down in a few hours, so it was time to state a failure of the operation.

“What are we gonna do if he don’t show up at all?” he addressed that question to the Special Agent from D.C.

“He will,” Mulder replied, unruffled. “We’ve got results of our car check-out from the Quantico lab. The prints on the windshield match to the frozen prints from the bodies of the previous victims and the prints from Crosby’s house. However, they don’t match to the Benson’s fingerprints. There are no typical human fingerprints at all.”

“So, this is a dead end,” it wasn’t a venomous remark, it seemed McGrain got genuinely upset about the news.

“Well, it doesn’t lead us to Benson directly.”

Mulder and McGrain stood approximately in the center of the public rink, almost facing the local theater. By the evening the place had become nearly crowded – people were skating alone and in pairs, many of them with small kids, teenagers were running smartly, sending the sleet from their skates to scatter around; they fell, laughed, then jumped up, and darted off again. The red coats and white beards of the phony Santa Clauses came into view now here, now there. Mulder shoved his hands deeper into his pockets; he had chilled noticeably despite the fact that the weather had gotten a little warmer by the evening.

Scully returned to the car to warm up. At first she had been stubborn in her wish to stay at the rink, but Mulder had promised that they would change places later.

When his phone chirred, McGrain barked out into it sullenly, “Yeah, I’m listening.”

“Now the guys can swear that there isn’t either that bullet or blood in the house. I don’t get it, is he a zombie?” McGrain said after having heard out the person on the other end of the line as he shoved his cell phone into the pocket, rubbing his cold hands together.

Mulder shrugged.

“I don’t think so. We still have time. I’m gonna get back to the car for a while – Agent Scully and I will change places. You should get warm too; I think you’ve got frostbites on your face.”

“It’s nothing,” McGrain gestured offhandedly with his hand. “In comparison to what my superiors are gonna made with me if we don’t catch the guy, the frostbitten face will be the least of my problems. Don’t hurry Agent Scully up; my guts are telling me that he isn’t here.”

****

The agents’ Ford was parked not far away from the tents with hot beverages and warmed up hamburgers. Behind the tents kids had been making snow statues the all day long, decorating them with stones, branches, and tinsels. Some of the figures were the lucky enough to get some clothes – there was an old straw hat with torn edge on one of them, a baseball cap on the other one, and particoloured tattered scarf on the third. One of the snowmen that was leaner and taller than the others even had a coat. There was a dark hole on the right side of his chest; it seemed that kids had stuck some stones into the snow, which must have represented buttons, but they fell out of its places.

Mulder got closer to the car and rapped at the window.

Scully unlocked the lock on the door and let him in. He took the passenger seat.

“Are you cold?”

“Not exactly,” Mulder gratefully let his head fall back against the headrest. “Rather tired of waiting.”

There was warm in the car, so the necessity of leaving didn’t look too appealing. The sun was setting, and it started snowing anew. Soon the street lamp would turn on, and the stars awake in the breaks in the clouds, implacably bringing Christmas closer.

But it seemed they weren’t supposed to take part in the Christmas celebration that year.

“The rink is well within view here,” Scully said, “so I’ve been keeping it under surveillance. However, I’ve never seen anything suspicious.”

“Likewise. I’m envious of those who are cruising around there,” Mulder nodded at the skating people. “They’re spending their time with much more fun. And they’re definitely not cold.”

“Mulder,” Scully hemmed. “I don’t see a problem here. You need just to rent a pair of skates and go to the rink. You can join Dewdy’ group – there he is, the tallest one among Santa Clauses. He is right opposite our car.”

“Do you want to get rid of your partner? Skates and I are two incompatible things. Especially now, after twelve hours of standing at the same spot. When you chase a perpetrator through the woods and slums, you don’t get tired so much. Actually, there is not more exhausting occupation than wearing out the seat of your pants at the office from 9 to 5 every day.”

“I replace you there,” Scully began to wrap her scarf around her neck and button up her coat. “Just a second--“

“Take your time. McGrain think that our guy isn’t gonna show up at all.”

“And what do you think?”

“That he is wrong. And if Benson is really not here, it means only one thing: we are looking for him in the wrong place.”

“But--“ Scully trailed off and added after a short pause, “But we’ve learnt about the rink from that letter. He has nowhere to go anymore. There aren’t any other Santa Clauses in Albany now, and he won’t be able to leave the city if he tries.”

“I know and I don’t like this-- Are you hungry?”

“No. But you should grab something; you haven’t eaten since the morning,” Scully said with reproach. It was quite usual for him actually; he often went days with little or no nourishment at all during the investigations – not because he felt so, but because he immersed in his work so completely that any other considerations slipped his mind. And if he wasn’t reminded about the necessity of having breakfast and dinner, he could spend more than 24-hours half-starving.

Mulder grinned. 

“Thanks for the reminder. I’ll go and buy another rubbery burger,” having said that, he climbed out of the car and headed for the tents.

****

One of the snowmen swung after him, but there were too many other bodies – hot and therefore unnecessary. They could interfere. He didn’t care whose thoughts to use.

****

Something in the scenery seemed unnatural for Mulder. Odd. He cast a tense look over his shoulder but saw nothing unusual either among the mixed crowd or near the tents.

_“Come back. Don’t untie your belts.”_

Why did it come to his mind?

“What beautiful figures they’ve made, haven’t they?” a young woman in a fluffy white cap asked her boyfriend. “They’re so funny. Look almost like real ones!”

“They had been making them for the whole day yesterday,” a girl behind the counter, her cheeks splotchy red after being exposed to the cold air, added, “They had finished with the fifth only by night. They’re not here today for some reason; it’s a pity, actually, they are good at it.”

Mulder handed her the money and suddenly realized what was wrong. There were six figures behind the tents. And the tallest, leanest, most proportional snowman with the black coat slipped over his shoulders and the hole in his chest was much closer to the car now than when Mulder had headed there.

That wasn’t possible.

“Damn,” Mulder rushed back, drawing his weapon hastily but realizing desperately that it would be not much use.

Some golden-green creature dashed from under his feet and flied forward.

****

Scully was eyeing the rink pensively. 

As she was watching those people who were obviously enjoying incoming Christmas, the snow, and the smooth ice under their feet, reveling in speed and gusts of the wind into their face, she was musing that none of them had to worry about the Bareness in the heart for sure.

The sun had already descended over the roofs, colouring the clouds in all shades of mauve. Long shadows were lying down on the snow, snowflakes were swirling in the columns of light from the street lamps. All of this seemed too unreal, making Scully fell as though she was far from there.

That endless day was declining slowly.

According to McGrain’s plan, the operation had to go on until Benson was found or till 9 p.m. when the actors in Santa Clause’s costumes usually left. They still had a few hours until they recognized defeat. If Benson didn’t show up today, they’d have to set up that operation again in the future. 

Scully didn’t tear her eyes from the rink, so it took her some time to notice that somebody had neared the car.

“Mulder?” she called, turning her head and suddenly feeling chilled to the bones.

And the chill was obviously aiming for her heart.

****

As the snow slowly crumbled from a snowman, Scully saw a tall young man with pale, bluish skin and white lips. His clothes was covered with hoarfrost and therefore frozen stiff, and he had a big tear in his shirt on the right side of his chest. There weren’t any traces of blood, only loose snow was seeping through it, and it seemed that the man wasn’t aware of the hole in his sternum. His hands appeared to be semitransparent like dim glass while his body was eerily incorporeal.

He was moving very slowly, and for Scully the time had stood still, too. The cold arrested her movements, her rigid fingers didn’t want to cooperate when she was willing them to try and draw her gun, and her eyelashes froze together in a matter of seconds. Scully couldn’t hear anymore the harsh sounds of the skates, sliding over the ice, the human voices, and the music that had reached her ears before. Now she was aware only of the crunch of the snow under the feet of the man who wasn’t a man anymore.

A step.

Another one.

It was a sound of breaking of an ice crust on puddles in some November morning.

It seemed that all other sounds had frozen together and then crumbled into white dust.

The man bent over the passenger window slowly and reached his trembling hands to her through the glass as if it actually wasn’t there. Scully seemed to see the shreds of grey mist behind his back.

The Barren Essences.

“You were at his home,” Scully heard a dry, chilled voice. “I need to get there. I’ll take your thoughts and they’ll lead me to him.”

Scully was staring into his eyes.

Pale, ice-blue eyes. Bright.

“You’re still here,” Scully whispered, sensing blood in her mouth from her chapped lips.

“I’ll take your thoughts,” the man rasped, “and they’ll take your life. I need to get to his house. You were there. I need to go-- to him. I don’t need your life, but they’re hungry, and I won’t be able to stop them. I’m too hot. Too hot.”

Suddenly Scully seemed to see something incredible in the depths of his eyes.

Fear.

The most common human fear.

“Don’t do this,” she whispered, feeling as the blood on her lips is turning to the ice crust. “I’m armed. I’m a federal agent. Stop! They gonna-- shoot you if you don’t.”

“I can’t. He didn’t love me. He is the one to blame. Give me your thoughts,” his dry voice got so low that Scully could hardly make out his words anymore. His incorporeal figure was shaking violently. The misty silhouettes that were crowding around Benson now surrounded the car, and the darkness fell on her from all sides.

“Brian,” Scully whispered desperately and, overcoming the pain in her fingers, drew her gun. If he doesn’t leave her another chance--“He loved you. Do you hear? He--“

“No,” his voice was barely audible now. “No. We gonna kill you.”

“He loved--“

Too late; his unbearably cold fingers were already reaching for her head, and Scully realized that she had to pull the trigger.

But she didn’t have time for that--

The man suddenly winced, his head jerked as if he had been hit on his head, and he fall face down. Through the glass.

And the world around her succumbed to the darkness slowly--


	14. Chapter 14

****

Scully regained consciousness, feeling as somebody was rubbing her hands vigorously. 

She opened her eyes with difficulty, and thawed water flowed down her cheeks. 

“Mulder?” she called, barely moving her chapped lips.

He sat by her side, his coat covered her lap. The deafening silence had retreated, so now she was able to hear people’s voices, the beeping sounds of the machines, and the monotone noise of a hospital room. Light screens separated her bed from the hall, providing patients with an illusion of privacy, but barely an illusion as nurses were bustling in and out literally a couple of steps away.

“Where is Benson?” As Scully tried to straighten, the blanket she was covered with slipped from her shoulders.

“In ICU,” Mulder replied. “He is in a coma, while you suffer just from mild hypothermia. Fortunately.”

“I thought I saw him looking like an ice block-- I thought--,” her hoarse voice faltered, and she felt silent, perplexed.

She didn’t remember how she had ended up in the hospital – only Benson’s white face and the cold, chilling her to the bones. And now sharp, burning heat was spreading through her arms and legs, causing a tingle in her fingers and toes, and Mulder’s hands seemed to be unbearably hot.

“Is he alive?” she asked finally.

“If it can be called life,” Mulder said. “Doctors said he was alive but unconsciousness. He has a severe freeze burns and hypothermia. And one more thing-- The wound on the right side of his sternum started to bleed. It was dressed up. The bullet had pierced his lung and, most likely, stuck in the collarbone. He might pull through, but his prognosis is still unclear. The head injury isn’t fatal, but--“

“Head injury?”

“I knocked him out,” Mulder explained, straightening the blanket on her shoulders, “with the butt of the gun. Most likely, you’d have turned into an ice block like Crosby, if he hadn’t lost consciousness. They found a sack with a knife in the snow; it seems we’ve got our murder weapon. There also was a wooden hammer there he had obviously knocked his victims out with. Our car was covered with his fingerprints along with frozen patterns that we had already found on it. I’ve made two photos. Maybe Langly or the Bureau experts will pull something from it. I just don’t get why did he attack you?”

“He needed-- “Scully faltered again but then continued, “He wanted to get to Santa-- Well, to the place where we were earlier. He knew that we had been-- He thought that we had been there. He wanted to take my thoughts to learn how to get there. Geez, Mulder, I’m speaking blatant nonsense!” she exclaimed, aghast. “How did you realize that the snowman was Benson?”

“By a mere accident. Concurrence of many small details,” Mulder said. He decided to leave a flying little man who had shown him the way out of his story. “You need to get warm. And this is not nonsense at all. We’d known what he needed. It appears that he could get there only with our, even involuntarily, help. However, it’s obvious that I’m sleeping and dreaming all of this, otherwise how can I explain your sudden belief?” he smiled.

Scully pulled her hand from Mulder’s grip and pinched his wrist.

“I hope it’ll help you to distinguish dream from reality,” she said sarcastically, “from now on.”

As he rubbed his hand, Mulder thought that he’d prefer the other of the two methods of awakening he had offered her recently but decided to keep that particular thought to himself.

“Thanks. So, now we’re even.”

Scully smiled and felt a salty taste of blood on her lips again.

Having seen that, Mulder picked up a tissue, sat on the side of the bed closely to Scully, and started wiping the blood from her chapped lips, touching them cautiously with his fingertips.

****

They found McGrain in the Neurointensive Care Unit outside Benson’s room. The halls of the Neuro ICU were nearly deserted in comparison to the halls of the reception ward, steps and voices sounded resonantly there, creating a weird echo. It seemed that those smooth marble floors and walls emanated cold, making Scully shiver slightly.

A pair of cops kept guard by Benson’s room while the doctors worked on him inside – silently and without fuss. In fact, there was no hurry anymore.

“How are you feeling, Agent Scully?” McGrain asked anxiously. “Maybe you should stay here for a while?”

“I’m fine, thanks,” Scully smiled. She already felt warm enough, her lips stopped chapping and bleeding, so she wasn’t really fond of the idea of spending incoming Christmas in a hospital room. “Do you have any news about Benson’s condition?”

“Yes. The doctor will be back soon. The guy has severe cerebral hemorrhage. Doctor Klein said he is in a coma.”

“Is it the result of my hit?” Mulder asked.

“I don’t have an idea. I was told that he was very ill. Hypertoxic schizophrenia, they said. It seems it’s often accompanied with brain hemorrhages. That’s what we’ve got here.”

A tall dark-haired woman in scrubs approached the FBI agents.

“Doctor Klein, we’d like to know more about Benson’s condition,” Scully addressed to her.

“He is suffering from critical hypothermia and cold-related injuries of his extremities. He also has a head injury but without a hematoma, scull damage is minimal. But the patient is in a deep coma now and on mechanical ventilation. As a result of a massive stroke his brainstem has been damaged. Hypertonic schizophrenia is a rarity and such complication as brain hemorrhage, too. As much as I know, he was treated with some non-proprietary drug in the past. Can we get to know more about it?”

“Haven’t you gotten a sample?” McGrain asked, surprised. “I’ve sent it up here.”

“No, we haven’t,” the doctor shook her head. “I was told nothing about it. I’ll call to the lab.”

With this she headed for the nurse station with McGrain on her heels.

“What will happen with him if he doesn’t rally from the coma?” Mulder asked. 

“If brainstem respiratory neurons recover without recovering of the function of cerebral cortex, he will be in a vegetative state. Otherwise-- If the brain death will be attested-- “Scully trailed off, and Mulder nodded knowingly.

“He said that dreams affect reality--“

“Mulder--“ Scully started, but he didn’t give her a chance to finish her thought, interrupting her.

“Hold on. Dreams affect reality. Can he affect reality now? Is this condition similar to sleep?”

“Mulder, even if we accept this science fiction theory about influence, dreams are results of processes which take place in the cerebral cortex. Benson’s cerebral cortex doesn’t function. He can’t see any dreams. He isn’t asleep, he is in a coma.”

“As it seems we did exactly what we’d been asked,” Mulder concluded grimly. “He is unconscious, so he doesn’t obey the Barren Essences that slid here through his consciousness. He isn’t asleep, so he can’t affect reality. Besides, he is still alive.”

“I don’t think we have something to do with it,” Scully shrugged. “Hemorrhaging could occur as a result of any other cause, not necessary a hit on his head. This is a fate, Mulder. We even can’t confirm that this complication is a direct result of administration of those drugs he was treated with by doctor Crosby. All we can is assume.”

“Let’s just hope that the Barren Essences left him alone.” Mulder took a look through the window at Benson. “But we’ll never know about it.”

The ventilator was humming rhythmically, the monitors were beeping, and a nurse was filling Benson’s chart. The cop by the door of the Benson’s room wasn’t tearing his eyes from the patient although he posed no danger for anybody. 

Meanwhile, doctor Klein came back to the room after she had made a few calls, and McGrain approached Mulder and Scully.

“I don’t have a clue what is happening,” he complained to them. “They stopped my man, showed him a warrant, and confiscated the bottle. It’s never gotten to the lab.”

“Who signed the warrant?” Mulder asked, not expecting to get an answer, actually.

“Agent Mulder,” McGrain sighed, “it was a kind of warrant, receiving which you usually don’t ask any questions. You know it just as well as I do.”

After a pause McGrain pulled a small evidence bag with a few greenish capsules in it out of his pocket.

“I’ve put it off for our lab,” McGrain handed the bag to Mulder. “Take it. Your lab is more equipped to study it. Are these pills responsible for his condition?”

“We’re not sure,” Scully shook her head. “Maybe we’ll be able to determine it after a battery of tests.”

McGrain nodded and then added, “His fingerprints match to the prints from Rowena. And he has been identified from a photo. The murder weapon also matches. If he hadn’t had a brain attack, he would be convicted--“

“If he hadn’t had a brain attack, he would be found insane and forcibly confined in a mentally hospital,” Scully interjected quickly.

“Probably,” McGrain agreed. “By the way, those cops who got hurt are alive. They will lose a few toes and, perhaps, fingers, though. I’ve got a call from Washington. Well-- The case is closed. The killer is found. Thank you. The Assistant Director Mister Skinner asked to tell you to write a final report. It has to include all acceptable details. Agent Mulder, Agent Scully”--McGrain hesitated for a moment and then added, “I’m not gonna question things I’ve witnessed during these several days. I just accept them at face value. But--“ 

“But at the same time you’re not gonna believe in little green men,” Mulder grinned. “I’m not surprised at all. We’re used to it, it’s OK.”

McGrain said goodbye and left the Neuro ICU.

“We don’t have enough evidence to include information about the Barren Essences in our report,” Scully said warily. “Not to mention--“

“I know,” Mulder replied. “All we have is the blurry shadows on the tapes and ice in victims’ heads. We can write about it but won’t be able to present proofs. Unless we get something useful from it.” Mulder slid the bag into his pocket with great precaution. “Maybe we’ll come to understand how dreams change reality, and delirium becomes material.”

Scully shook her head dubiously.

“Scully-- Don’t you feel that we didn’t do everything we could? What if there was another way? To keep the guy alive and not in such state-- To make his ghosts leave him alone. What if it was possible?”

“What is the point of asking yourselves these questions? It’s quite possible that he’d had a brain attack even without interference of the Barren Essences,” Scully said. “And without that drug.”

“Maybe,” Mulder agreed. “Maybe.”

At that moment the doctor Klein stepped from the Benson’s room and neared the agents.

“Agent Mulder, Agent Scully.” The doctor shifted her gaze between the partners. “We've got the latest test results. In consequence of the hemorrhaging, his brain is so damaged that the chances of his full recovery are very slim. It’s hard to say how long he’ll be in this current state. In case of any changes we’ll let you know immediately.”

At that the doctor turned on her heels and returned to the room, her steps barely audible.

“It looks like it’s over,” Mulder mused. “We need to fill up the report and that’s it? The killer is neutralized, and everybody’s happy. All the i's are dotted and the t's are crossed. Anyway, we don’t have anybody to hold responsible for the unidentified drug because Crosby is dead. Did it actually exist at all?” He fumbled in his pocket for the small bag. “I bet on everything I have that we’ll never find the ends. I wonder who may want it and for what purposes? Who wants to use dreams to affect reality?”

Scully kept silent; what was the point of answering aloud when the words hung thick in the air between them.

“It’s late, Mulder. We did everything we could.”

Mulder pulled the car keys out of his pocket and asked, “How are you feeling?”

“I’m fine,” Scully replied hastily to prevent him from persuading her into staying here, among the deserted marble walls and bitter hospital smells, a little bit longer.

But Mulder, obviously, wasn’t going to do that.

“Let’s pick up our car and drive home. I hope that Skinner won’t require our report first thing in the Christmas morning.”

And they left Neuro ICU, closing the door behind them carefully.

****

The young man was walking up the endless staircase. He was alone; his grey companions had disappeared, dissipated after his consciousness collapsed there, downstairs. The door was closed forever. They couldn’t get into that place where his consciousness expanded again.

While he was ascending, Brian was wondering that his consciousness had become much clearer. He had lived for many years in semi-darkness and uncertainty, as though he had wandered among dim hills. But now he felt keenly the smells of fresh mountain air, wormwood, and burning logs, heard the tick of the clocks, sensed an unusual ease in his body and clarity of his consciousness. 

The steps of the staircase had turned stone a long time ago. An abyss went down from the both sides of it; the Darkness swirled in its incomprehensible depth. His ears were ringing from the wind that burnt his face, but Brian walked up the stair stubbornly, as though he didn’t pay any attention to what was going on around him.

He was waiting for him by the entrance. 

Silence and calmness reigned in the cave. It was nearly empty except a stone hearth at the far end of it, a flower pot with two roses, and a sand glass on the clock, reflecting manyfold from the ice-covered walls. The Keeper turned to his guest and asked, “You’ve wanted to see me. You’ve sought my life. Why?”

“I don’t want it anymore,” Brian’s voice faltered. “The Barren Essences are gone. They’ve stayed there,” his waved his hand, pointing down. “And I may never wake up again.”

“You’re insane,” the Keeper said ruefully.

“I was, but here everything’s different. You must not be a madman here, and at the same time you must or you’d never find this place.”

“You killed people.” A look the Keeper gave Brian was full of pain as well as his voice.

Brian hung his head.

“I’ll atone for it,” he promised.

The Keeper reached out and touched Brian’s chest with his hand.

“Is it still a bare, empty place?”

“Yes,” Briand confessed. “It is, but it can be filled. But you’ve already known it. Why do you need me?”

“So, it seems you’ve guessed correctly,” the Keeper smiled.

“It smells wormwood here,” Brian got a lungful of the air. “Crosby was here.”

“Yes, he was. From time to time the Barren Essences force their way into this world through people like you. They’re looking for me to get rid of me and leave the world without the keeper. That’s why I help those who let them in – to save myself as well as them. This time isn’t an exception. I had a hard time luring the people who are willing to help someone like you to the place where I could give them mountain oil. It’s possible to get here from everywhere, but the oil can be carried out from the only one place on the Earth. I had succeeded in doing it before; the Barren Essences had left, and the door they had slid through had been locked up forever. That time it went differently. That doctor broke his word, and the Barren Essences broke through. They didn’t go there they had come from but forced their way here. Then people started to die, and I had to ask for help, calling those people who could stop you when you were obsessed. I’ve known that they’re capable of doing it, although I had to walk through the Time to summon them. I’ve wanted you here. I couldn’t let you kill me.”

“Why?” Brian asked again.

The Keeper was looking at Brian silently, smiling.

“Because otherwise the Sun won’t rise,” Brian guessed. He dart a look at the hearth and the round yellow flame with nine balls, revolving around it. “But why have you wanted to see me?”

“I want to help you. You can choose your fate. You took lives although against your will. You can choose and either go to the place where others go,” the Keeper gestured to the Darkness, “or stay and start giving people the Miracle. With me. As long as it required. Maybe forever.”

“And how will I know that I atone for my crimes?” Brian asked, not tearing his eyes from the yellow fire.

“You’ll know. They’ll just believe in you.”

Brian was watching the fire silently. 

The Darkness was uttering some indistinct and scary sounds, resembling whisper and seethe, among grey rocks below.

“I agree,” was Brian’s final answer.

The Keeper reached his hand, and the light golden dust cloaked Brain. The silence descended over the cave interrupted only by the howling of the fire in the hearth and rustling of the invisible hands of the clocks.

The Keeper unclenched his fist, revealing a golden-green butterfly on his palm. It straightened its wings, flied up, and turned into a little man in a green costume with semi-transparent wings on his back.

No one else was present there.

The Keeper stepped through the dissipating dust cloud and reached for the sand glass. The sand in the upper bulb was next to nothing, and when the last grains of silvery quartz fell down, he turned it over.

The room got filled up with rapid tick and rustle of the various clocks that started moving forward hurriedly. The round yellow flame in the hearth blazed up, warming the tiny balls which were revolving around it. The blizzard started anew outside.

The Barren Essences retreated, but someday they’d be back.

The new cycle had begun. 

****

The holiday skating went on. The night had fallen, but it didn’t kill enthusiasm of the people, waiting for the celebration; the rink was flooded with light, and the music didn’t stop even for a moment. People lit Bengal fires, made wishes, and just enjoyed the night, the falling snow, and the multicoloured garlands on the trees.

Most of the cops had left the rink a long time ago.

But special agents’ Ford was still at the same place where Mulder had parked it before. It was covered with the thin layer of snow but otherwise unscathed.

“The case is closed.” Mulder opened the door and slid in behind the wheel. “I hope we’ll see the sunrise tomorrow.”

“I hope so, too,” Scully said softly, “otherwise all the efforts we’ll put into writing of the report will be wasted because nobody’s gonna read it.”

“I wonder where they leaved to. I mean those creatures that can’t be even mentioned in this report.” Mulder pulled the manila folder with printed frames from the CCTV tapes out of the glove compartment. “Personally, I think we should mention it nevertheless.”

“What’s the point of writing about it if we don’t have proofs of their existence?” Scully disagreed. “They must have gone there they had come from when Benson’s altered consciousness cease to exist.”

“The door had closed, and they could have been here until it was opened. Why did he need us?”

“Who do you mean by he?” Scully asked cautiously.

“The Keeper.”

“He was in need of those who were able to believe. It seems such people are quite rare among those who could stop Brian.”

“How do you think who he is really?” Mulder put the folder back. “Please, don’t tell me about dream, you can leave that part of our argument out. Just tell me what you really think.”

Scully sighed.

“I don’t know, Mulder. Maybe he is the Keeper of the Time. Or the Sun. Or just the Miracle.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. There isn’t any logic in it as well as in everything we saw, although I’m still not sure that we saw anything at all. And what do you think?”

“I think, Scully, that he’s just the Keeper. Of the world and each of us.”

****

\-- There wasn’t any sense in driving to Washington at night, so the partners decided to get back to the hotel where they had spent the previous night and were going to hit the road in the morning.

Mulder was watching the rink with thoughtful expression on his face.

“Are you still envious of them?” Scully asked with a smile. She smiled like that fairly rare. And when it happened, Mulder could expect anything at all from her.

“Why are you asking?” Mulder said gingerly.

“Let’s go.” Scully opened the door quickly.

“Where?”

“Come on!”

Mulder climbed out of the car and inquired again, “Where are you going? We’d better ride to the hotel-- You shouldn’t get too cold now!”

“I’ll be all right. Come on, let’s go!”

And she practically dragged him toward the tents with skates for rent.

****

Mulder sat at the bench and looked at his feet dubiously. He had just finished up to lace his skates up and now observed the result of his work. It didn’t impress him much.

“Are you ready?” Scully reached for his hand. “Get up.”

“I don’t like it,” Mulder said grimly. “I think it’s almost as bad as the offer to play the fiddle.”

“Not in this lifetime. Haven’t you ever skated?”

“Only in the early childhood,” Mulder muttered with resignation, sincerely regretting about absence of the boards and handrails along the perimeter of the rink. Having found himself on the ice, he realized that he could take no step and, most likely, would spend the entire hour they had paid for, not moving at all. The ice seemed to be awfully slippery, the people around him run at breakneck pace, and his skates were absolutely out of his control.

“Don’t worry.” Scully reached for his hands and added in a vindictive tone, “It’s not more difficult than playing baseball, Mulder. Let’s go.”

Mulder slipped his arm around her waist.

\--It appeared that Scully definitely could skate without falling, and although it was her only skill when it came to the ice-skating, it turned out to be quite enough. She moved backwards along the side of the rink very slowly and cautiously for Mulder’s sake, giving him time to take shaky, unsteady steps.

“I’ll promise to make a good deed every day for the entire next year, if I get to the car alive and with my legs intact,” Mulder whined. He couldn’t tear his eyes from his skates. “Now I need the Keeper as sure as hell--“

“Don’t look down,” Scully admonished as she squeezed his forearms tightly. “You should look forward. It’s like bicycling.”

“Really?” Mulder grinned. “So, you suggest giving my legs carte blanche?”

“Not just your legs,” Scully replied, realizing just a bit too late that she had uttered an involuntary innuendo. 

Mulder leered at her.

“As you wish,” he said.

“Mulder, I meant--“ Scully blushed.

“I got it.” Mulder interjected, looking her straight into eyes. “It seems your advice is pretty reasonable. It’s easier to move this way.”

“But it’s difficult for me to skate backward,” Scully added rapidly. “If you’ve got the basics already --“

“Yeah, almost,” Mulder said, smiling. “But you don’t leave me alone, do you?”

Scully turned around and felt as Mulder wrapped his left arm around her waist. She had nothing to do but follow suit. She thought cowardly that she was treading on thin ice there, not pun intended, but it was late and nowhere to retreat.

“So, what’s next?” Mulder inquired. Scully thought it over for a moment.

“You have to make rhythmic steps. This way you have more chances to keep your balance. Bend your knees a little and lean forward or you’re gonna fall on your back. Move your hips and shins simultaneously. Move your hip forward--Yeah, just like that. You should also move your arm-- I mean _the other_ arm, Mulder-- Yes. It should help you to keep your balance.”

“Here we go.” Mulder was first to step forward.

Of course, his movements were clumsy and jerky, devoid of gracefulness and easiness of a person who was used to skating, but it’s quite possible to learn something, which is beyond your power, together – and not to fall.

**** 

The snow had been still falling on people’s heads and shoulders, the sounds of music fading away as well as the noise of the crowd. Just few people had left at the rink by the midnight; the majority of them had hurried home, eager to get there by the magic hour.

\--Mulder skated more confidently now. Probably, he could even move for a few yards without clinging to his partner but preferred not to tell her that. They slid along the side of the rink, holding each other and moving synchronously and slowly in attempting to stay upright. The December air filled with smells of fresh snow and Bengal fires hadn’t burnt anymore but rather slightly cooled their hot faces. It seemed that the time had decided to stand still for a few moments to admire the fireworks and listen to people talking.

But, unfortunately, all has its date.

“Our time is almost up,” Mulder said softly as he took a look at his watch. “Christmas comes in a minute.”

“We celebrate it in a very weird way this year,” Scully whispered back. “However, the last one we also spent-- unusually.”

“It looks like it’s our fate,” Mulder replied. They stood face to face again – very close, almost pressing ourselves to one another. Mulder’s arms slid around Scully’s waist without any conscious effort on his part.

The air resounded with loud cracks of firecrackers and fireworks, the night sky was lit up by red, green, golden flashes, its colourful reflections played on Scully’s light-coloured coat. People next to them shouted something enthusiastic but unintelligible – the music was too loud to make out the words.

Christmas has come.

Mulder brushed the snow from Scully’s hair and shoulders warily.

Magnolia-vine and almond. Slightly bitter, barely perceptible notes--

“You may be right.” She was looking at him, not breaking eyes contact for even a moment. “But we wouldn’t know it.”

“Maybe we don’t need to.” Mulder reached out and touched her cheek, then her lips with his fingers, and hesitated for a moment. It suddenly occurred to him that it was winter, fortunately, so all bees slept quietly in their cozy wax bedrooms.

\--Was it a dream? Or reality?

Scully barely made out the difference between them at that moment. Had the end of the world been postponed? His confident hands that were holding her, the warm of his palms-- Were all of that real or she was just dreaming it?

The snowfall, the unknown park-- They were at the rink now, but did it really matter?

Her lips were just a few inches from his. There was a barely visible trace of the clotted blood on the lower one. Her eyes that had changed its colour in the night darkness, turning from ice-blue to deep-blue, almost violet were even closer. That wasn’t a dream. It was here and now.

So simple.

Just a few inches apart.

But sometimes it’s harder to cover a few inches than thousand miles.

A step forward.

A couple of inches.

One.

A quarter.

****

\--A deafening, stirring sound from a radio broke the silence; somebody must have turned it on in their car. 

Scully winced, her skates moved backwards mechanically, and she broke the circle of Mulder’s arms.

A step backward? Again?

“We should go,” she said, avoiding his eyes. “Our time is over.”

“The magic moment has come, so now we can congratulate each other with Christmas!” DJ’s too enthusiastic voice reached their ears. “It’s time to kiss and hug your friends, loved ones, or whoever that person is next to you tight!”

Mulder nodded.

“Yeah, let’s go.”

Scully turned and headed for the tent. Mulder strolled along, willing his suddenly tired legs to move. He fumbled in his pocket for the small evidence bag, musing that reality affect dreams all right--

****

A flame is cracking in the fireplace, sending hot sparkles flying in all directions.

A very common flame in the most common fireplace. As the sparkles fall on the steel sheet on the floor, they hiss and fizzle out. The silence reigns within many miles of this deserted, isolated area. The snowfall and the whole world remain beyond these walls, keeping inside the smell of burning logs and the particoloured blanket on the floor.

“Maybe we’ve climbed too high?” Mulder wraps his arm around Scully’s shoulders. She is looking at the fire intently, her hair shimmer of copper more than usually. “It’s not late to come back.”

\--A mountain trail – narrow and winding - leads to the cabin. But the road beyond it is hidden; nobody knows whether a bridge over the abyss there.

“It’s not late,” Mulder said again. “But I must move forward.”

Scully turns to him and looks straight into his dark eyes with fire in its depths. The flame that is dancing in the fireplace must be reflecting in it.

As you are Gaius, I am Gaia (1) 

As Fox leans down and kisses her still slightly chapped lips, Dana slides her arms around his shoulders. Her hair has a barely perceptible smell of magnolia-vine.

Nothing separates them anymore – not miles, not inches, not even white silk.

It looks like a weird dream, mixed with reality, when the latest seems vague, all thing around you are blurry, and you struggle to understand either you’ve awoken already and now daydreaming or you dream that you’ve awaken--

It is so simple.

To leave your fear behind as discarded clothes, as habitual cocoon. To leave your indecision behind.

And just to hear each other out.

\--Dana feels as Fox’s palms slides over her shoulders, down to her waist, her hips, how the thin silk falls to the ground in a shapeless heap, and her bare skin is burning everywhere Fox touches it with his lips, covering her neck, her collarbone, her breasts with kisses-- Over and over again until she is short of breath and shivering.

They don’t break their embrace from the very first touch of their lips to the last lingering spasm as the two become one.

\--The flame in the fireplace is crackling, pouring sparkles on the steel sheet.

And the world didn’t end – the dawn is breaking.

_As you are Gaius, I am Gaia._

****

Washington, DC  
FBI Headquarters  
December 25th, 1999

A new day brought confusion and strange weightless heady fatigue that just wasn’t possible as well as a light smoky smell which usually clings to your hair if you sit by the fire or a fireplace for a while. But there wasn’t any fireplace in Scully’s room.

As well as a logical explanation of that fact. However, Scully didn’t really try to get to the bottom of it.

****

It might be the first time in his life when Mulder was sorry that his usual, habitual nightmares took a day off, because in those cases the awakening felt like deliverance from them. After them he didn’t have to guess painfully either it had been a dream or not.

And to realize that it was a dream indeed. Nothing had happened. There had been neither the fireplace, nor the blanket on the floor. Nothing at all.

Only that ‘foreverful’ lingering fatigue. The one that was impossible to resist to and nowhere to come from.

****

They’d arrived back to Washington by noon. During the ride they were quiet and thoughtful, having decided that it was just a result of the odd case. None of them dared to talk about it, being apprehensive that the conversation would turn to the direction of dreams and realities.

Nevertheless, they had to wrap up the case.

Despite the holiday, the Bureau hummed with activity. The Assistant Director Skinner met his subordinates with a question about their report.

“It will be ready within 24-hours, Sir,” Mulder promised. “We just need to clear some details. Any news from Albany?”

“Not yet. Benson is still in a deep coma. His chances are not good at all. But I must admit that you handled the case flawlessly.”

Mulder shrugged imperceptibly. Scully preferred to keep silent.

“I hope you don’t keep me waiting for your report for too long. What details do you need to clear?”

“Some things in the lab,” Mulder replied evasively.

****

Mulder stopped by the entrance of the lab and warily pulled the bag with greenish capsules out of his pocket.

“How do you think our experts will be able to determine what it is?” he asked Scully.

She looked at the capsules with something akin to bewilderment and even fear as it seemed to Mulder.

“Are these the same pills that McGrain gave you?”

“Yeah. The same that Benson had taken, until his dreams started affecting reality,” Mulder mused aloud.

“Mulder,” Scully shifted from one foot to the other.

“What?”

“You-- I mean-- I hope you didn’t try this substance of unknown origin on yourself?” Scully pried the bag out of his fingers cautiously.

Mulder gave her a close look, trying to guess what she was thinking.

“No, I didn’t,” he said eventually. “There were five capsules there. All of them are still intact. My usual nightmares don’t belong to reality. This time they let me alone, though. But I still think that we saw the Keeper with our own eyes.”

“I’m not gonna argue with you,” Scully said, putting her hand on the door handle. “You know--“she added as an afterthought, “when I packed this morning, I found something in that sock.”

“What?” Mulder asked, surprised.

“One thing-- from my childhood. I had a kind of-- lucky charm that was made of wax. I kept it in my notebook but one day it got lost. I don’t have a clue how it got there.”

“And you don’t have any logical explanation for it at all,” Mulder said contemplatively. 

“No, I don’t,” Scully admitted.

Of course. What explanation is needed if the wax figure had the shape of a fox?-- And she hardly would ever work up the nerve to tell anybody that she saw-- No, that she seemed to have seen-- So, she seemed to have seen a little green man with golden wings who had vanished from her purse as she had opened it.

Yes, she had definitely imagined that.

As Scully pulled the door, Mulder stepped forward and stopped her.

“I also found something in that sock.”

“What?”

“The book I got for Christmas when I was 12. I don’t remember who gave it to me exactly. The book got lost when we moved.”

“What was the name of the book?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Mulder smiled. Of course, what else but “Moby Dick” could appear in the sock? “I liked it.”

“I need to go,” Scully opened the door and added before she slid it shut. “Merry Christmas.”

“Merry Christmas,” Mulder echoed.

****

From the case report #--

Lab analysis was not able to determine the chemical makeup of the compound contained in the capsules that had been found in doctor Crosby’s safe.

Brian Benson still has his lungs artificially ventilated, but accelerated pneumonia weakens him and increases the possibility of the lethal outcome in the near future.

We were not able to find any accurate and conclusive explanations of the phenomenon of the grey shadows from the CCTV videotapes. 

The Benson’s MO also remains unexplained.

However, it is proved that Benson is held responsible for the committed crimes. Due to his mental incapability, in case of recovering he is subject to compulsory treatment in a mental institution. 

The case #-- is closed.

The report is written by Special Agents of the FBI Fox Mulder and Dana Scully.

****  
New Year’s Eve, 2000  
The Millennium

\--The former FBI Agent Frank Black exited the hospital waiting room, holding his five year old daughter by her hand.

“--30 seconds now, 30,” A loud voice came from the small TV, hanging under the ceiling in the corner of the room.

Mulder and Scully were watching Frank and his daughter go. The latest case on New Year’s Eve left its marks on them. While Scully got off with well-defined red marks in the shape of fingerprints on her neck, Mulder’s had his right hand in a sling. But everything was over by now, they hadn’t let the Millennium group achieve their goal – whatever it was.

“Get ready,” Dick Clark exclaimed in the same loud voice. “Hug your friends and loved ones tight or what the heck, whoever that person is next to you.”

It seemed TV and radio personalities didn’t try to be creative and offer the audience some original advice in their Christmas and New Year’s programs.

Mulder and Scully stepped closer to the TV. The moment was unusual indeed; it’s not like you have such good round figure in the calendar every day. 

“No time like the present.”

The huge ball was whirling on the screen, pouring the light in all directions, and the countdown had begun. Dick Clark picked it up.

“Are you ready? Here we go. Ten, nine... eight, seven!”

The time was almost over.

Everything old has to come to its end in order for something new to begin.

Or at least for changes.

And the world didn’t end once again indeed--

“Five, forth, three, two, one! Happy New Year, 2000!”

Enthusiastic cries, roar of fireworks, and music poured out from the screen, as the camera showed excited, radiant faces, kissing and hugging pairs.

Mulder wasn’t taking his eyes from Scully.

Actually, it’s so simple. In this reality. Here and now. Not in a weird dream, but in reality.

\--Scully sensed Mulder’s gaze and turned to him, going to ask him why he is looking at her so intently, and saw that he was leaning down toward her. Before his lips touched her own, she met him half-way without any hesitation.

\--It was a tentative, slow, careful kiss.

There was no rush.

The Apocalypse had been postponed.

As they smiled at each other bashfully, Mulder said softly, “The world didn’t end.”

“No, it didn’t,” Scully agreed, trying not to contemplate how, when, where and who exactly had read her mind, and looked away.

“Happy New Year, Scully,” Mulder added, putting his intact arm around her shoulders.

“Happy New Year, Mulder,” Scully echoed.

****  
Somewhere far away from there the small man who had just recently worn a green suit and golden wings was climbing the stairs of Eternity; his bill had been paid and closed.

The end.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (1) these words, spoken by the bride, were the part of the Ancient Roman marriage ceremony.


End file.
